Here's an update from today's SFO paper:
Airplane passenger with knife arrested
Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, June 13, 2003
An Indian man was arrested on a San Francisco-bound airplane Wednesday and charged Thursday with carrying a concealable knife onto the aircraft, federal prosecutors said.
The U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco identified the man as Nityaprakash Das, although he was charged under the surname Sadhu, which appears on his passport. Sadhu is a Hindu title that translates roughly as "holy man."
According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court Thursday, Das, who prosecutors said was traveling with a group of Hindus to visit a Bay Area temple for the summer, was aboard United Airlines Flight 71 from Newark to San Francisco Wednesday afternoon when he caught a flight attendant's attention about 3 1/2 hours into the flight.
The flight attendant, Edwin Brown, noticed Das holding a knife as he sat in seat 34C, according to the affidavit. Investigators said he apparently was using the knife, described as a 3 1/2-inch blade similar to a paring knife, to cut fruit.
According to the affidavit, Brown told Das he could not have a knife aboard an airplane. Das at first refused to surrender the knife, according to the affidavit, but the flight attendant confiscated it, then passed a note describing the incident to Federal Air Marshal William Bish, who was aboard the aircraft.
Brown gave the knife to Bish, the affidavit states, who briefed a second air marshal, Samuel Robbins. Robbins took Das to the back of the airplane galley, took him into custody, handcuffed him and searched his orange robes.
The air marshals then took Das to a vacant first-class seat and accompanied him for the remainder of the flight.
Das spent the night in San Mateo County Jail and was charged in San Francisco Thursday morning with possession aboard an aircraft of a concealed dangerous weapon that was accessible during flight.
Prosecutors said he was released Thursday afternoon on an unsecured $20,000 bond, given his passport and ordered to return for a hearing Aug. 1.
Transportation Security Administration officials said the incident would probably prompt a review of security procedures in Newark, but insisted that Das's ability to get a knife aboard an aircraft did not suggest a systemic failure of the nation's airline security.
"The TSA has made aviation security safer than it ever was before," said TSA spokesman Brian Turmail. "What this incident underscores is the effectiveness of the multiple layers of security we have in place."
Turmail said those layers include screening, checkpoints, federal flight deck officers, air marshals, a strong police presence in airports and developing ideas such as arming flight crews with tasers.
Underlying those layers, Turmail said, is public education, including working with overseas media to ensure visitors from abroad understand what items are not allowed on American aircraft.
"The responsibility on this falls on the passenger, in the sense that it is a crime to take a sharp item on board an airplane," he said. "It can be either checked or shipped, but it should not be put in carry-on baggage."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...3/BA196150.DTL