AMR pilot demands information from ATC about terror threat
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I had a rather bizarre situation similar to this happen to me in MIA one day. We had been parking at one of the FBOs at MIA, until one day someone, we really never found out who, decided that we were too close to the street for security reason. This was suddenly discovered after seven or eights years of parking on this FBO ramp with no problems what so ever.
Never the less, Washington decided they knew more about this than we did, so we moved parking locations. New parking spot was now on a remote ramp just west of the main terminal complex and ramp, between the runways, next to the CFR station.
As luck would have it, I was the first AC/PIC/captain (take your pick) on a 727 to go to MIA and use this spot. The ramp was just big enough for a 727-200 to pull in and then do a 180 to face east as so to exit the ramp the same way we had come in.
So I taxi in, do the 180 and park. After parking I leave the aircraft and walk over to a group of police officers and police dogs that are standing next to a long white single story building. At first I thought that these K-9 units were something new for our ground security. Turned out that no they were not, but were there training the dogs for sniffing out explosives. As I am talking to them our regular ground support units show up with the prisoner transportation vehicles.
As the prisoner transfer starts one of the police officers I'm talking to gets a radio call. He answers and just a couple of seconds later he yells at the other K-9 officers that there is a bomb threat on one of the aircraft on the airport. Then I hear the fire trucks starting up at the CFR station on the other side of the ramp. Then the FE comes walking up to me in a hurry and tells me the same thing.
So all of us, the K-9 guys, the FE and I start looking around trying to see where the fire trucks are going and the police officer is on his radio trying to find out just where this aircraft is with the bomb onboard.
Turns out it is us.
Now we didn't have the same ground security as say Air Force One, but it's pretty tight when we are parked somewhere. Also this was our first stop that day from our home base. So the odds of someone planting a bomb on the aircraft is pretty low, next to really, really improbable. But, I wasn't paid for being an odds maker, I was paid to be a pilot, who was in charge of an aircraft loaded with over 100 prisoners in handcuffs and leg chains.
However, before I ordered an aircraft evacuation, I decided to find out just how viable this bomb threat was, where did it come from, who was called, etc. As we were checking this an airport truck drives up to us, you know the type, small white pickup, yellow flashing light on top drives all around airports doing God knows what. The driver gets out of the truck and walks up to us, then says, "I don't know why it took so long for anyone to take any action after I saw this aircraft sitting here on the ramp, but after I called in that there was an airplane with a bomb on board parked on the isolation ramp, I see things did finally start happening." (Or something like that.)
Apparently where we were parked, was the normal parking spot for aircraft with some kind of security threat. This guy saw us parked there, not surrounded by fire and police vehicles and had called in 'asking why there was no one responding to the aircraft with the bomb on it'.
I'll not repeat what I and the police officer told the guy in the airport truck. Needless to say I do believe that in the future he will ask for information before yelling 'Bomb' over the radio.
So while I did not order the aircraft to be evacuated, I was about 30 seconds from doing so. And if you think 100 plus regular passengers would cause problems running around after an evacuation, think what mayhem a 100 plus prisoners would have caused.
Never the less, Washington decided they knew more about this than we did, so we moved parking locations. New parking spot was now on a remote ramp just west of the main terminal complex and ramp, between the runways, next to the CFR station.
As luck would have it, I was the first AC/PIC/captain (take your pick) on a 727 to go to MIA and use this spot. The ramp was just big enough for a 727-200 to pull in and then do a 180 to face east as so to exit the ramp the same way we had come in.
So I taxi in, do the 180 and park. After parking I leave the aircraft and walk over to a group of police officers and police dogs that are standing next to a long white single story building. At first I thought that these K-9 units were something new for our ground security. Turned out that no they were not, but were there training the dogs for sniffing out explosives. As I am talking to them our regular ground support units show up with the prisoner transportation vehicles.
As the prisoner transfer starts one of the police officers I'm talking to gets a radio call. He answers and just a couple of seconds later he yells at the other K-9 officers that there is a bomb threat on one of the aircraft on the airport. Then I hear the fire trucks starting up at the CFR station on the other side of the ramp. Then the FE comes walking up to me in a hurry and tells me the same thing.
So all of us, the K-9 guys, the FE and I start looking around trying to see where the fire trucks are going and the police officer is on his radio trying to find out just where this aircraft is with the bomb onboard.
Turns out it is us.
Now we didn't have the same ground security as say Air Force One, but it's pretty tight when we are parked somewhere. Also this was our first stop that day from our home base. So the odds of someone planting a bomb on the aircraft is pretty low, next to really, really improbable. But, I wasn't paid for being an odds maker, I was paid to be a pilot, who was in charge of an aircraft loaded with over 100 prisoners in handcuffs and leg chains.
However, before I ordered an aircraft evacuation, I decided to find out just how viable this bomb threat was, where did it come from, who was called, etc. As we were checking this an airport truck drives up to us, you know the type, small white pickup, yellow flashing light on top drives all around airports doing God knows what. The driver gets out of the truck and walks up to us, then says, "I don't know why it took so long for anyone to take any action after I saw this aircraft sitting here on the ramp, but after I called in that there was an airplane with a bomb on board parked on the isolation ramp, I see things did finally start happening." (Or something like that.)
Apparently where we were parked, was the normal parking spot for aircraft with some kind of security threat. This guy saw us parked there, not surrounded by fire and police vehicles and had called in 'asking why there was no one responding to the aircraft with the bomb on it'.
I'll not repeat what I and the police officer told the guy in the airport truck. Needless to say I do believe that in the future he will ask for information before yelling 'Bomb' over the radio.
So while I did not order the aircraft to be evacuated, I was about 30 seconds from doing so. And if you think 100 plus regular passengers would cause problems running around after an evacuation, think what mayhem a 100 plus prisoners would have caused.
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Interesting story con-pilot!
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They did evacuate 100+ from a -200 on the runway at ORD one day when the brakes caught fire
Brakes caught on fire huh, JK flying it?
We evacuated a -100 at NAS Miramar one day, smoke in one of the aft lavs, but no problem with the prisoners then either.
Course the Marine platoon surrounding the aircraft may have had something to do about that.
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...also not JK.
Seems we had a lot of problems at ORD, even back when I was still there. Not too long after I left, they lost a section of one the flaps on the approach, that landed in the back yards of one of the biggest opponents of ORD. Now that took some skill. And the guy flying received a lot of kidding from me, including a copy of the initial NTSB report, in colour and framed that I gave him.
He loved it, thought it was hilarious.
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CP, when you evacuated the prisoners, were they in chains, or did the guards have them removed?
Is that public knowledge now OK465?
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It is strange that some people on this planet do not understand that with a bomb threat, you have to treat it as real, and you have no choice but to get the people off the airplane. You can't yourself decide if it is true or not, your training and intellect says why stay on this airplane if it might blow up.
They don't do that in terminal buildings with a threat so why would we. SLF with their opinions don't count because they have no clue. Safety is number 1 and the inconvenience of going down a slide wasn't an option for us if that is the only way.
The captain that gave them 60 seconds did the right thing. The ground superviser was trying to make sure the terminal didn't get blown up if they taxied to the gate. The captain didn't want to blow up his airplane with everybody in it. The captain did the only safe thing, evacuate. He was lucky and had a rear stair, I didn't so used slides.
Maybe if the company jumped on it when I asked for airstairs I could have saved them 10,000 dollars for 4 new slides but they didn't.
They don't do that in terminal buildings with a threat so why would we. SLF with their opinions don't count because they have no clue. Safety is number 1 and the inconvenience of going down a slide wasn't an option for us if that is the only way.
The captain that gave them 60 seconds did the right thing. The ground superviser was trying to make sure the terminal didn't get blown up if they taxied to the gate. The captain didn't want to blow up his airplane with everybody in it. The captain did the only safe thing, evacuate. He was lucky and had a rear stair, I didn't so used slides.
Maybe if the company jumped on it when I asked for airstairs I could have saved them 10,000 dollars for 4 new slides but they didn't.
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fireflybob:
Exactly. Evacuations properly carried out and not under the duress of injuries and perhaps fire are not inherently dangerous.
but not nearly as dangerous as a bomb going off when all 200 pax are on board
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Bubbers, I tootally agree with your assessment of a bomb threat, but you forget that in this instant...there was NO BOMB threat!
The captain saw law enforcement vehicles around his aircraft and demanded an explanation. So it could have been a bomb, sure. But it could also have been a hijacking which he was unaware of, or an exercise team 'attacking' the wrong aircraft, or maybe the EBOLA virus broke out in the country he had just departed from, or even more unlikely 'SNAKES ON HIS PLANE' or 'TERRORISTS IN HIS WHEEL WELL'.
In the end it was the 'terrorist in wheel well' story. Still feel very sure you would evacuate just because you saw a police car next to your plane and ATC was not very 'pronto' in giving you an explanation?
The captain saw law enforcement vehicles around his aircraft and demanded an explanation. So it could have been a bomb, sure. But it could also have been a hijacking which he was unaware of, or an exercise team 'attacking' the wrong aircraft, or maybe the EBOLA virus broke out in the country he had just departed from, or even more unlikely 'SNAKES ON HIS PLANE' or 'TERRORISTS IN HIS WHEEL WELL'.
In the end it was the 'terrorist in wheel well' story. Still feel very sure you would evacuate just because you saw a police car next to your plane and ATC was not very 'pronto' in giving you an explanation?
Last edited by PENKO; 20th Sep 2012 at 09:13.
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No sane person would try that
And would it really have taken much more than 60 seconds to pick up the phone, dial the number ATC offered him and get the information he needed?
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PENKO
It was not ONE police car. He said he was "surrounded be emergency vehicles"
And was told to park away from his normal parking spot.
The Capt did exactly the right thing.
Artie....why wait?? He has no idea what anyone is up to..ATC or "terrorists"
and he is the boss of the ship.
I'd have done the same.
It was not ONE police car. He said he was "surrounded be emergency vehicles"
And was told to park away from his normal parking spot.
The Capt did exactly the right thing.
Artie....why wait?? He has no idea what anyone is up to..ATC or "terrorists"
and he is the boss of the ship.
I'd have done the same.
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Artie....why wait??
Rather than sitting there heroically drumming his fingers for 60 seconds, he could have telephoned the number and got the information he needed.
In fact, it would have taken less than 60 second to dial the number, so his "solution" took longer. Indeed - why wait??
Ever played poker? It's called a bluff.
They didn't evac, so perhaps he forced the info he was seeking. Putting myself in his shoes (and I do wear his shoes, in a manner of speaking) after evaluating the risk and likelihood of a frozen terrorist as described and weighed it against the risks associated with an evac, staying put seemed the best option. Arriving at that conclusion requires information, not an intentional effort to keep them In the dark. If getting the full story requires upping the ante, then so be it.
Well done skipper.
They didn't evac, so perhaps he forced the info he was seeking. Putting myself in his shoes (and I do wear his shoes, in a manner of speaking) after evaluating the risk and likelihood of a frozen terrorist as described and weighed it against the risks associated with an evac, staying put seemed the best option. Arriving at that conclusion requires information, not an intentional effort to keep them In the dark. If getting the full story requires upping the ante, then so be it.
Well done skipper.
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So what are the chances that the FBI, FAA, PANYNJ, or anyone else involved in this will change the way they communicate with crews in the future? Now that this AA pilot has set a precedent, I imagine there's a good chance another crew will have to go down this path in the future.