Security Checks - how good are they?

[B A Lert]

I have to seriously question the real value of scanning in-cabin baggage in the light of my recent experience. A recent clean out of my much travelled back pack turned out a small box-cutter. It has passed through scans at Australian airports and Singapore several times as well as a few European airports without detection, yet it's quite a lethal bit of kit and could do quite some harm if used maliciously.

Are the checks "for show", or has the industry become more complacent?

[Capt Claret]

They're all for show as far as I'm concerned!

I recently relocated, by road, and had placed a pair of nail scissors in my toilet bag, with a mental reminder to remove them when I arrived and unpacked.

Needless to say, I forgot. I found the scissors on an overnight in PER, having carried them undetected through screening the previous day.

The goon who confiscated them from me asked me what I wanted him to do with them. He wasn't happy with my answer! :*

[WynSock]

I forgot to take my laptop out of my flight bag the other day, the guy "looking" at the screen didn't notice it. Maybe he did and saw my ASIC and uniform, and didn't bother stopping the bag.
In my opinion, we are looking for the wrong things in the wrong places.

[mgahan]

I fly many sectors most weeks and have just returned from a month away in the US and then Iraq/Jordan (where you'd expect some form of decent checks).

It's a joke the world over.

My cabin bag has 16 zipper compartments. Even when the US TSA "select" me, the checks normally tire around the fifth or sixth. In Syracuse last month something in my shoes set of the sniffer but because there had been a recent vehicle fire near the door the "specialist" decided it must have been the fire retardent. I actually think it was the fertiliser my mate had been applying on his lawn just before I walked over it to the car for the airport. In my cadet days we called it ANFO (prilled Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil). [By the way, my profile has seen me selected "randomly" 106 times out of 110 transits of US ports since 9/11. My pocket knife has remained in my cabin bag all the time.]

Heading out of Sydney in August to the US, I actually talked the security specialist in the final check (looking for fluids and creams, no less) to check all of the compartments on one of my two cabin bags. He complained because it made him look less efficient than the two guys beside him. He gave up for the second bag, which held a 500ml bottle of water and my carry on toiletries of toothpaste and deodorant.

Talk to the diligent staff looking at the Xrays at Tulla and you could move an armoury through them. Football's good but the accurracy of the detenction equipment is even better!

The Mariott in Amman and the Sheraton in Lagos do better checks.

Best airport check this year was in Ullan Baatar - and I had entered from airside with the Airport Director and the chief of Air Traffic Services. Professional.

MJG

[Max Talk]

In reference to the rediculous need for flight crew to go thru the whole hog getting onto the tarmac to do our job, whilst other airport staff don't have to, I was amazed to see a guy ride a bike across the tarmac in front of my aircraft, (with no high viz jacket on either). Another day a guy drove a very old Holden (not the Kingswood!!!), again, with no flashing light, and extremely likely with no 20.9 approval for the vehicle, to pass in front of the terminal building and presumably park somewhere down the QF area, no doubt so they don't have to bear the parking costs and risks of the usual staff carpark. Add to this, the caterers who drive thru the external gate, to load "stuff" onto your aircraft, and drive back out again. Really makes a lot of sense, compared with what flight crew have to put up with, and we only drive the damn things !!! It's a joke, get real !!!:=

[Flight Detent]

'mgahan' - you mean you actually stay at the Sheraton in Lagos!

I stayed there once, and I want to keep it that way!

The other on the island is a little better, it's the best they've got there!

Cheers, FD :yuk:

[compressor stall]

Without naming names, what makes it even more farcical is the differing standards at each australian capital city airport. Two capital cities pick up my belt every single time I go through. Not one other capital city has, ever.

:ugh:

[Keg]

Friend of mine was plain clothes cop. He accidentally carried his spare Glock magazine through Sydney to Melbourne. He's a smoker and had gone out for a smoke twice before the flight departed. Total of three times through security.

On return from Melbourne they found it but didn't find his old speed loader for his .38 which still had six rounds in it- he didn't even find that until about three weeks later though!

I helped him fill out the CAIR report. (Yes I know. A CAIR report is like an ATM machine! :ok: )

Lucky they took my nail clippers off me though. I could have done some damage with them. Yes I'm REAL confident about security screening! :rolleyes: :ugh:

[WynSock]

A while ago on this forum, someone suggested that the baddies could hold the pilots family hostage and force him/her to take something onto the aircraft. Thats why pilots have to be screened.

:confused:

That is the sort of moronic, illogical suff we are up against here. And the trouble is, it seems the gov has basically given security carte-blanch to do what ever they want. Say the wrong thing, like " I allready HAVE control of the aircraft buddy" to a security guy, and you could find yourself in serious hot water.

:*

Some bureaucrat in the dept of Trans seems to have decreed - trumpet fanfare........" NO one will travel on an Aeroplane from an Australian Airport without having been made SECURE...."

A farce of great proportions indeed.

But what can we do about it?

[The Wawa Zone]

Yo...

The point is that DOTARDS has to do something, otherwise politicians cannot say that they are taking action against the Kebab-for-hire mob. However, preventative action then taken is based on an "affordable safety" equation. Yes, we will see this again ..

This translates to vacant-eyed Chubb guards on carpark duty for 8 hours at a time, and all the antics mentioned above.

Current methods do provide a defense against the would-be nutbag who couldn't think his way through a shopping list, let alone an attack on a aircraft.
The have no effect on the results that can be achieved by a trained and determined team of attackers (no I won't use the meaningless "terrorist" word).

[L J R]

A friend flies F-16's in the US Guard in the States, and does the CAP thing over US cities with 6 A/A missiles on his F-16. He is a US airlines captain during the week, and had his nail clippers confiscated recently. Now if he wanted to do some damage, do you think he would choose the nail clippers or a six pack of Air to Air Missiles?.....