FFDO
I understand how that could happen because it happened to me before. I was an FFDO for 6 years and we had trouble finding places to store the weapon on international flights. But we finally had places to store it but you cant forget to do it.
When you do many flights domestic, International, Domestic , International flight combinations, taking your gun out when home, putting it back, you can make mistake.
No excuse but can happen.
I normally kept my weapon in my flight box, the black square pilot kit not a suit case.
One day I was flying to Lima Peru, I checked my flight box and the weapon wasn't there, all was good. I went through normal security without trouble. When we got to Lima the crew goes through a short radar scan as well.
After I got to my room, I opened up my suit case for a change of close and low and behold, there it was, "MY WEAPON, damn I was shocked. I must have tossed it in my suitcase and forgot I didn't it.
I made it through normal US security with the weapon in my suitcase, and another in LIMA, and now I have serious trouble..!
Now I have a loaded weapon, in a foreign country, no choice but to man up.
I called my handler, a special type person came to my hotel, took my weapon and it was over. (not really over)
I was placed on Non Active status, waiting for my weapon to get back. Was called to the airport I left the country, they wanted to know how I made it through normal screening, no charges were filed and it was not made public.
That happened right before I was going to China, while waiting for the event to clear, they asked me to turn in my cread, so I packed it up, shipped it in and said, have a nice day...the end.
I will say, all the training, recurrent, risks, as a volunteer I would not do it again.
So the pilot that got caught, will have trouble, I am glad I didn't end up like that.
Happy flying.
Last edited by On Final; 5th Apr 2014 at 04:36.
Reason: .