Shoe in mouth joke
Konkordski,
Don't get your bowels in an uproar. What the pilot did was utterly stupid, but we all know that you don't joke with border guards, immigration officials, or airport security personnel.
What I meant by "empty craniums" is that in the U.S. at least, many of the security people are still about three sandwiches short of a picnic. Even if they are federalized, many are still the same who worked for the private firms and we all know their IQ levels and pay scales.
So, the lesson is, look serious. Don't protest and don't even mention the fact that you have 15 dwarf Kurds in your pocket. Even though that would be an exaggeration, you would probably be put through enough grilling that you would miss your flight and face possible arrest for "willfully" doing something illegal.
In the case of the AF pilot, the company suffered a great deal. It had to put up 350 people in hotels, transport them back and forth and feed them. Plus, they had to fly in another driver. (Can't see why AF didn't have a few reserve pilots on standby at JFK).