Was involved in a similar incident a few years back whilst serving on LXX sqn as an ALM.
Civi airport somewhere during 2nd gulf war, crew is obviously carrying 9mm pistols, aircrew knifes and the usual array of bits and bobs.
Walk up to the crew check in gate and are instructed to put all our weapons in a little plastic tray before we pass through the metal detector machine thingy. Proceed to walk through machine, given a pat down my security and then handed back our weapons, knifes etc.
WTF was that all about, lol.