Originally Posted by
xfsd
Crew meal under the door ? Always had the desired effect on me!
Yep, they feed you pancakes and flounder because that's all that will fit under the door.
A colleague at a western U.S. airport found a stranger with no visible ID waiting for him in the cockpit when he arrived first on the aircraft to do a morning preflight for departure a few years ago.
Apparently the visitor was a member of one of the Homeland Security 'tiger teams'. These folks had ID to get onto the ramp and then would see if they could somehow get into the plane unchallenged. Unfortunately, they weren't very knowledgeable about aircraft and in some cases did things like use an AOA probe as a step to get into the overhead hatch of an RJ.
My coworker told the intruder to wait and he got off the plane, had the jetway pulled away and called the airport police to report a possible attempted hijacking. The cops brought the resident U.S. Marshal and the Homeland Security guy was hauled off in the back seat of a police car for 'questioning'.
I operated through the station a couple of days later. The on duty manager said the Homeland Security guy was still mad and wanted to go after the captain but was told that his 'test' showed the flight crew was proactive in a security situation. After this and other incidents I believe the tiger team approach was toned down.