The Bumper Thread of Airline Security Scares

[Just a spotter]

Reports are being carried on local radio news services in Ireland of a security threat to this mornings Aer Lingus service from JFK to Shannon.

Seems a phone call was made to the Garda (Irish Police) at around 4am local time and the flight carried on to land at Shannon without incident at 8.20 local

Passangers being interviewed and baggage checked in Shannon.

Dublin Airport web site showing final leg of flight (Shannon to Dublin) cancelled.
Origin Airline Flight Scheduled Time Status
New York Aer Lingus EI112 25-08-2006 08:25 Cancelled

JAS

[DrKev]

Here's the same story on BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5284926.stm).

I do like this quote particularly...

"It wasn't an emergency landing. It wasn't a red alert. The flight was coming here anyway," said airport spokesman Eugene Pratt.

Talk about a change of style and attitude! Refreshing!

[PaperTiger]

Well done Capt. for treating this "threat" with the seriousness it warranted, and not making a beeline for KEF or wherever. :ok:

[BWBriscoe]

Sky just breaking that American Airlines flight AA 55 (Manchester - Chicago) has diverted to Bangor.

Sky reporting incident at MAN before departure.

Aircraft is on the ground.

[Jordan D]

For those interested, full story on BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5287768.stm

Jordan

[Rollingthunder]

CO52 out of Argentina via Houston now in Newark being searched after dynamite was found in a college students checked luggage. It never ends.

[HowlingWind]

Additional to that noted to in the AA diversion thread:

HOUSTON - A college student's checked luggage on a Continental Airlines flight to Houston from Argentina today contained dynamite, and federal authorities are investigating why he had it and what he intended to do with it, an FBI spokeswoman said.

"Certainly we are doing a thorough investigation and trying to find out what this individual's intention was in trying to bring dynamite here," FBI spokeswoman Shauna Dunlap said today.

The dynamite was found during a luggage search in a federal inspection station at Bush Intercontinental Airport shortly after Continental Flight 52 landed about 6 a.m. today. Marlene McClinton, spokeswoman for the Houston Airport System, said a bomb-sniffing dog "had a hit" on explosive residue during a further search.

She said Customs and Border Patrol and the FBI shut down the customs area and began questioning the passenger who had the luggage. The identity and age of the passenger, a man, were not released.

Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Omero Longoria said the man told fire officials that he works in mining and often handles explosives, so that would explain the residue. He said federal officials were investigating whether the man's explanation was true, and the fire department's role in the probe ended upon determining the man's bag did not contain a bomb.

Dunlap declined to release specifics, but confirmed that the explosive was dynamite. She said authorities were "sifting through facts" and would release more information as the investigation progresses.

Full story at Houston Chronicle (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4141246.html)

[Eff Oh]

This really is becoming beyond a joke. American paranoia. I know I'll get pelters for that comment, but it really is becoming stupid. We are letting the terrorists win, and they don't even need to leave the house!

[SaturnV]

Not dyanmite (in the sense of a stick or two) but residual traces as sniffed by a dog in the customs area.

[ChristiaanJ]

Don't you LOVE journalists?

Hat off to the dog, though, for spotting the residue.

[sidman]

More Info...
Click2Houston.com—Houston, TX


FBI: Dynamite Found In Baggage



Related Stories | What's this?
• Dynamite found in airline passenger's checked luggage, FBI says


Click2Houston.com
2:33 p.m. CDT August 25, 2006
HOUSTON - A suspicious item found in a piece of baggage at Bush Intercontinental Airport on Friday was dynamite, officials told KPRC Local 2. Officials said a suspicious item was found during a secondary luggage check at about 7 a.m., about an hour after the Continental Airlines flight arrived from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Officials said the item was found during a routine search with a K-9 unit.

Authorities conducted an investigation and found residue from an explosive device on the bag.

"Contents of the luggage did contain an explosive component," said Mark Mancuso, deputy director of public safety and technology for the Houston Airport System. "It is a very small amount of explosives, sufficient enough to where it was not necessary to use the threat containment unit that was available. It was carried out by the Houston Police Department and sent for laboratory analysis."

The bag's owner was detained and questioned, officials said.

Officials said the bag's owner told them he was touring mine fields in Buenos Aires and bought the item as an artifact.

[flash8]

and what happened to the US/Pakistani woman in the US who smuggled a home made bomb on board a US a/c last week (of course she got the idea from the UK terrorists as it was liquid based and that also happened to be the paranoia-substance-of-the-day)? I mean if it was that serious surely we would have heard more by now? Or was it.. as I think many of us suspected.. just more ****sh*t.
The piss is being taken out of us a bit too much lately.
I'm all for safety naturally like most of us, and erring on the side of caution is second-nature. But this is actually starting to become detrimental to safety!

[HowlingWind]

From the story posted by sidman
...told them he was touring mine fields in Buenos Aires...Huh? Mining areas, mayhaps, but how many Claymores or OZMs have been placed around Bs.As. anytime recently? Sad to say, it seems it's all gone over the top. :ugh:

Edit: I heard from sources in Houston that media there are reporting a half stick of dynamite was found in a bag belonging to a lad, 21 yrs, from Connecticutt (dunno about that spelling) in the US. He supposedly told authorities he picked it up whilst touring mining sites in Bolivia.

[vapilot2004]

The problem for our business goes thusly when CNN/FOX/___ gets the story:

CNN.com

"FBI: Dynamite found in luggage"


Actually the story is:

Traces of dynamite were found within luggage.

The former headline creates (at least for me) the image of sticks of the same, while the latter is less sale-able as "top news"

[Dream Land]

I would say that 1/2 stick of Dynamite is a bit more than a trace. :}

[vapilot2004]

I would say that 1/2 stick of Dynamite is a bit more than a trace. :}

Ah, well then your news source is better than mine. (no sarcasm intended DL) :confused:

[ozbruce]

If all the pilots were not hidden away in their cockpits as & when these threats from passengers came about perhaps they would be able to come into the cabin & make afirst hand assesment instead of being fed information from cabin crew which is second not first hand. This is not the fault of the lads at the sharp end but again the knee jerk reactionism to the situation post 9/11 whihc forced pilots behind the locked & re-inforced doors.

[Steve888]

I heard a good one tonight. A woman was using nail polish to paint her nails, the smell went through the cabin, alarming a lot of the passengers, now for the fun part...the aircraft was diverted back to its departure airport.:rolleyes:

I'll see if I can find the source for it.

[SaturnV]

Not dyanmite (in the sense of a stick or two) but residual traces as sniffed by a dog in the customs area.
Correction: Half a stick
From the Houston Chronicle
In the Houston case, federal officials have charged Howard McFarland Fish, 21, a college student, with carrying an explosive aboard an aircraft. Fish was being held without bail, pending a hearing in federal court Monday.

Fish arrived at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Continental Airlines Flight 52 from Buenos Aires about 6 a.m. Friday. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, a Customs and Border Protection canine singled out Fish's luggage.

Customs officers inspected the bags and discovered at least two suspicious items, including the dynamite, in his bags.

Fish told authorities that the items were souvenirs he bought while exploring old mines in Bolivia, according to Mark Mancuso, deputy director of public safety and Technology at the Houston Airport System.

FBI officials interviewed Fish and determined the incident was not an act of terrorism, but did not say whether they have verified Fish's story.

Fish's father said that he is certain his son intended no harm but keeping the dynamite was instead careless.

"What a stupid, stupid thing to do in today's world," his father, also named Howard Fish, told the Associated Press.

Whether the younger Fish was a threat or not is only part of the concerned raised Friday, critics said. Security on international flights should have been tighter, especially after British authorities foiled a suspected plot earlier this month, critics said.

[Chesty Morgan]

If all the pilots were not hidden away in their cockpits as & when these threats from passengers came about perhaps they would be able to come into the cabin & make afirst hand assesment instead of being fed information from cabin crew which is second not first hand. This is not the fault of the lads at the sharp end but again the knee jerk reactionism to the situation post 9/11 whihc forced pilots behind the locked & re-inforced doors.

Dunno about you Bruce but there is NO WAY I am going into the cabin in such a situation. My job is to fly the aeroplane, not play mediator to a nutcase. Besides, how would you know if it was or wasn't a ploy to get you out of the flight deck for ulterior motives?

[SaturnV]

and what happened to the US/Pakistani woman in the US who smuggled a home made bomb on board a US a/c last week (of course she got the idea from the UK terrorists as it was liquid based and that also happened to be the paranoia-substance-of-the-day)? I mean if it was that serious surely we would have heard more by now? Or was it.. as I think many of us suspected.. just more ****sh*t.
The piss is being taken out of us a bit too much lately.
I'm all for safety naturally like most of us, and erring on the side of caution is second-nature. But this is actually starting to become detrimental to safety!
No bomb smuggled.
Woman suspected of carrying explosives released
By Teresa Moore/The Ironton Tribune
WAYNE COUNTY, W.Va.— Flights in and out of Tri-State Airport are back to normal today, one day after a Pakistani woman was suspected of having possible explosives in her carry-on items.
The liquids in question were apparently not explosives.
Being from Canada, how did you miss this questionably sourced explosive-on-board scare on United 94 (SFO-EWR) on August 19, or rather, how pseudo journos can manufacture mountains from molehills.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/hagmann082306.htm

[flash8]

Don't miss anything usually SatV, but as these occurences are now happening on an almost daily basis, what might have caught my attention a few months ago with alarm bells ringing, now just doesn't mostly even merit the time of day. Its got that bad, I suspect for many of us.

[sec 3]

Been in the business a long time and I can easily say 99% of journos know **** about aviation, and most times when they report on an incident or accident they look like total fools to people who know a bit about the industry.:confused:

[Two's in]

The real danger with this nonsense of course, is that we all become desensitized to it, and inadvertently lower our awareness threshold. 99 nutters later, the real McCoy turns up and everyone has been so FOX'ed and CNN'ed to death with this (no pun intended), something very unfortunate happens.

The complete lack of standardization and consistency from the Government is not helping the current debacle. When security staff are making this stuff up on the spot (e.g. wide variation by Airports and staff in what you can or can't take on board), and nobody challenges them on it because there is no benchmark to measure it against, it leads to distrust, suspicion, and anger towards security staff at the lack of regulation; instead of a common aim from passengers and staff alike towards thwarting the existing threat.

People who fly for a living have long understand the credibility of the Government imposed security measures. The current crisis merely underscores that point by effectively throwing out the existing practices and simply reacting to a threat that has been out there and recognized by security professionals for some time. The need to be "seen to be doing something" has driven the current policy, or what laughingly passes for policy.

No airline professionals should be expected to show initiative in this day and age, where the risk of litigation alone, never mind an actual incident, demands that every stupefyingly moronic act of idiocy on board, or near an aircraft, be met with the full counter-terrorist response. What would undoubtedly help, is if the lazy, slack-jawed neanderthals who report this garbage as news actually gave it a rest, and stopped providing both these morons and their acts of foolishness with the oxygen of publicity. Not only would it help soothe the troubled brows of the travelling masses, it would actually help limit the economic damage to the Aviation industry caused by this type of scaremongering, which is indirectly providing comfort to those who would commit these acts in the first place. Freedom of speech is a fantastic excuse for scaring the public witless, but I believe there was a personal responsibility angle intended to go along with that particular freedom

[Xeque]

Dunno about you Bruce but there is NO WAY I am going into the cabin in such a situation. My job is to fly the aeroplane, not play mediator to a nutcase. Besides, how would you know if it was or wasn't a ploy to get you out of the flight deck for ulterior motives?
Shame on you Chesty!!

You are the Captain of the ship. Every little thing that happens on board is of interest to you. Get off your arse and go and find out what is true and what is hysteria.

[Rollingthunder]

A US Airways flight from Charlotte diverted to to Tri-Cities Regional Airport was being detained on the airport's new southside taxiway due to a bomb threat, a TCRA official has said.

[PaperTiger]

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=4501850LONG BEACH, August 27, 2006 - A college student was arrested after
authorities say he called in a bomb threat to the Long Beach Airport
because he arrived late for his flight and was prevented from boarding,
an FBI spokesman said Sunday.
Yechezkel Wells, 21, was being held at a federal detention center in Los
Angeles following his arrest Saturday night, FBI Special Agent Kenneth
Smith said.
He was scheduled to appear in federal court Monday on charges of
providing false information and making threats, Smith said.
Wells is accused of calling in the threat after he arrived only minutes
before a Jet Blue flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was scheduled to
leave around 9:10 p.m. and was denied a boarding pass, Smith said.
Shortly after, Wells, a U.S. citizen attending college in Miami, was
arrested by local law enforcement at the airport based on unspecified
information in his call.
"He admitted that there was no bomb and admitted he was upset because he
wasn't allowed to board the plane," Smith said.
The plane departed about an hour late after authorities using
bomb-sniffing dogs determined it was safe.I wonder where he got the idea that bomb threats result in flight delays ? :hmm:
More copycats to come no doubt...
:mad:
Like I said...WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A US Airways flight en route from Philadelphia to Houston was diverted to Bristol, Tennessee, Monday because of a bomb threat, an airport official said.
A spokeswoman for the Tri-Cities Airport, which serves eastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina, said the FBI was at the airport investigating the threat.
"There was a potential threat of a bomb," she said.
A what ? :confused:

[angels]

I'll be careful about too many details here, but I have a friend working for a security service in the UK who has a sniffer dog, trained to detect explosives.

A few months back the dog got agitated about a couple of pax boarding a flight to Toronto.

Turned out they were miners who handled explosives. My friend was well chuffed that the sniffer dog detected the residual they had on their clothing.

The pax were too.

[Farrell]

Stepping out of the cockpit for anything like that would be a no no.

Can anyone remember that poor unfortunate Aer Arran pilot who got his face smashed in by two drunken itinerants a while ago?

Thankfully in that case, the aircraft was on the ground - one can only imagine the trouble it would have caused enroute.

[dahamsta]

Plenty of candidates in the air business. :)

STUPID SECURITY AWARDS (http://www.privacyinternational.org/index.shtml?cmd%5B342%5D%5B%5D=c-1-Stupid+Security+Awards&als%5Btheme%5D=Stupid%20Security%20Awards&conds%5B1%5D%5Bcategory........%5D=Stupid%20Security%20Award s)
21/08/2006

We've all been there. Standing for ages in a security line at an inconsequential office building only to be given a security pass that a high school student could have faked. Or being forced to produce photo ID for even the most innocent activity.

If you thought after Enron that the accountancy profession was bad news, just wait till you hear how terrible the security industry has become. Even before the recent "liquid bomb" scare a whole army of bumbling amateurs has taken it upon themselves to figure out pointless, annoying, intrusive, illusory and just plain stupid measures to "protect" our security.

Stupid security has become a global menace. From the airport that this month emptied out a full plane because a passenger was drinking from a lemonade bottle, to the British schools that fingerprint their children to “stop” the theft of library books, to the airline company that refused to allow passengers to bring books or magazines onto the plane, the world has become infested with bumptious administrators competing to hinder or harass us - and often for no good reason whatever.

The sensitive and sensible folk at Privacy International have endured enough of this treatment. So we are running an international competition to discover the world's most pointless, intrusive, stupid and self-serving security measures.

The "Stupid Security Awards" aim to highlight the absurdities of the security industry. Privacy International’s director, Simon Davies, said his group had taken the initiative because of “innumerable” security initiatives around the world that had absolutely no genuine security benefit. The awards were first staged in 2003 and attracted over 5,000 nominations. This will be the second competition in the series.

"The situation has become ridiculous" said Mr Davies. "Security has become the smokescreen for incompetent and robotic managers the world over".

Unworkable security practices and illusory security measures do nothing to help issues of real public concern. They only hinder the public, intrude unnecessary into our private lives and often reduce us to the status of cattle.

The airline industry is the most prominent offender, but it is not alone. Consider the UK rail company that banned train-spotters on the grounds of security (e.g. see this article(external). Or the security desk of a US office building that complained because paramedics rushing to attend a heart-attack victim had failed to sign-in. Or the metro company that installed a $20,000 biological weapons/gas detector and placed it openly next to a power plug so terrorists could conveniently unplug the device.
Privacy International is calling for nominations to name and shame the worst offenders. The competition closes on October 31st 2006. The award categories are:

Most Egregiously Stupid Award
Most Inexplicably Stupid Award
Most Annoyingly Stupid Award
Most Flagrantly Intrusive Award
Most Stupidly Counter Productive AwardThe competition will be judged by an international panel of well-known security experts, public policy specialists, privacy advocates and journalists.

The competition is open to anyone from any country. Nominations can be sent to [email protected].

Details of previous award winners can be found below, or at http://www.privacyinternational.org/ssa2003winners.