Clot, As a 'lilywhite', my understanding is that no weapons were involved in any of those incidents except the Fed Ex. Silkair remains open to speculation but there are rumours that cabin equipment was used to disable the First Officer.
Every pilot walks through security with two weapons: his or her hands that will manipulate a machine carrying hundreds of tonnes of jet fuel at 8/10 of the speed of sound.
This 'lilywhite' only wants to be 'treated differently' in the form of a little bit of priority in the various queues to get his passengers airborne on time; or after working all night, over those who have been sleeping, watching movies or drinking wine. Just a cheap sign from Officeworks saying 'priority for crew' would not be much to ask (this is usually available at many other airports in the world).
It's an ill wind that blows no one any good, and 9/11 was just the excuse the security industry needed to milk taxpayers, airlines and passengers of millions to provide service of questionable value staffed mainly by boofheads who would probably be unemployable in any other industry, causing stuffups such as the subject of this thread.
The two passengers who walked the wrong way (by the way, ever heard of 'turnstiles'? I'm sure they are not expensive to install) were not the 'idiots'. The real idiots were probably too busy taking nail files off little old ladies or checking pilots for 'explosives'.
Last edited by Captain Dart; 19th Sep 2011 at 22:28.