Possible terrorist attempt Stockholm
 

BBC - Thursday, 29 August, 2002, 20:52 GMT 21:52 UK
20 held after gun found at airport

An airline passenger and about 20 other people, thought to be heading for an Islamic conference in the UK, are being held in Sweden after a handgun was found in hand luggage.
Swedish police say they are treating the incident "very, very seriously" and a terrorist connection is being considered.

A Swedish police spokesman told BBC News Online a 29-year-old man, who is from Tunisia but has Swedish citizenship, was being questioned along with other passengers, also believed to be going to the conference.

The gun was found on Thursday at Vasteras Airport, west of Stockholm, as passengers prepared to board Ryanair flight FR685 to Stansted Airport in Essex, a spokeswoman for the airline said.

Ulf Palm, a spokesman for Vasteras Police, said luggage and the plane itself were being checked for any explosive devices.

"We are checking to see there are no explosives or guns," he said. "We are taking this very, very seriously.

"The suspect was with a group of about 20 people and we have information, which is being checked out, that they were heading for an Islamic conference in Birmingham.

Mr Palm could not say when the flight would go ahead.

BBC News 24 reports that Swedish Police just charged a 29-year old with the incident, and that FR sent a relief aircraft which departed 10 hours late.

Full marks to the security staff concerned.

[Edited for spelling, more coffee needed...]

Thats an awfully long turnaround for being Ryanair.. :D

Storm in a tea cup. Ryanair would have lost the bag with the gun in anyway. Why do they lose so many bags ffs?

Again - well done - Swedish police.
I wonder how many other authorities would have been capable of making the discovery and handling the situation so well.
__________________________________________

It raises the point - that we are still very much at risk from these moslems.

I recently attended my annual security session at Cranebank. The "security" lecturer started the session, by asking the audience a question; "How do you think passengers would react (post911) if there was a hijack on board?"

He claimed that the hijacker would be instantaneously overrun by law abiding passengers - and therefore there was no longer any risk.
This astonishing claim was accepted by the class and we went on to talk about other kinds of security threat.

Now; this is from a senior person with full DOT backing. What the heck are they thinking? Here is a flight with 20 moslems attending a meeting in Birmingham and one tries to get a gun aboard.


If this Ryanair aircraft and all lives aboard had been lost - then apart from the human tragedy - 30% of pilots reading this forum would lose their livlihoods as airlines suffer further commercial collapse.
I personally think we deserve a better approach to the problem from our governments. I believe they have implemented no real change and have put their heads in the sand hoping it wont happen again.

:mad:

X Ray machine picked up gun in washbag. Police refusing to say if it was real or loaded.

Even without a gun, 20 determined terrorists could easily take over a 737. What the hell can you do about that??????????

LJ

Shuttleworth

Let's not jump to conclusions about this incident and just be thankful that the security staff at Vasteras were vigilant enough to spot it and deal with it.

Agreed, brabazon.

What concerns me, though, is that there is only one line of defence in sutuations like these, and that is the security staff.

If the X-ray machine isn't working properly, or the staff ar not as vigilant as they were yesterday, then the gun gets on board.

It doesn't matter if it was real or whether it was loaded or not. If people believe it is real when it is produced, then your in deep doodoo.

Should carryon baggage be examined twice? Once before the departure lounge and once at the gate?

luvly jubbly has a point,

Who needs weapons if you have 20 mad men screaming and kicking around in the cabin. If you can´t smuggle weapons across security, you can certainly get 20 ´honnest´ passengers with a valid boarding pass through security.

Even if the cockpit door is closed and locked it won´t do much good, unless it´s reinforced.

Maybe there should be a rule that no more than say 4 people of any one ethnic or religious group should be allowed to travel on the same aircraft.

Shuttleworth

This would include you I assume? Why did you wait for "the class" to dispute it?

Getting back to the incident at hand,

WZ: the gun couldn't have been lost by FR because it was in *hand luggage*, smart alec

Why did FR have to send a relief aircraft? Was it because the original departed without pax?

Fly747.
The annual haj would be a no,no as would the trips to Lourdes then ! :D

Well done to the security staff. It is, however, what they get paid for. No one says well done to the crew when a plane completes a flight without crashing, because its the crews job not to crash.

The Ryanair basher who made the comment about the bag - that was pathetic. Hopefully the moderators will take appropriate action.

Ryanair had to send another aircraft because the one that was to originally operate the service, as you could see from the news footage, was being extensively searched by police, sniffer dogs, and no doubt a few other organisations.

Whoever suggested that groups of no more than 4 from one religion or race on a flight - again not very clever. A family of five asian people comes to check in on a flight - two adults, three childrem. "Sorry Mr and Mrs Patel, we only excpet groups of 4 people who are not white european males". I dont think so.

Those that think passengers would overwhelme terrorists need to have a rethink in my opinion. How do you overwhelme 20 determined and motivated hijackers?

This is a timely reminder, less than a year after Sep 11, that there are those out there who still try, and in this case, came very close to succeeding, to commit acts of terrorism in commercial flights. It beholds everyone of us in the aviation industry to stay sharp and be vigilant.

Brenoch and Whisky Zulu,

Your comments are misguided. I feel that to make a mockery of something that could have been a serious situation (it COULD have been, but thankfully wasn't) is very incorrect.

Those members of this forum who have perhaps been directly affected by terrorism acts won't thank you for your comments either!!

Well done to the Security staff.

Fly 747, that is the dumbest thing I have read on pprune in at least 24hrs!
Err, so no one would fly in the US or the UK just for starters, how many Catholics, Protestants do you think board an a/c in those countries?? a hell of a lot more thsn 4 thats for sure.

Captain Stable,

That is a good idea. At Dubai airport they even check your baggage once you have got off the plane and are leaving the airport. They also check it twice on the way in. Once at the front door and then again at the usual points.

As for the idiotic comments about only 4 per group, what about the white terrorists? Timothy McVeigh et al:rolleyes:

Fly 747,

You said:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe there should be a rule that no more than say 4 people of any one ethnic or religious group should be allowed to travel on the same aircraft.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you trying to drive all the remaining airlines to bankruptcy?

Or is this a particularly unsavoury wind-up to all the non-WASP's who read PPrune.

An apology would be in order if it was inadvertant.

OK so once again, we have the forces of darkness trying to take over the world. We really need to do something about these Muslims! While we're at it we can take care of the Jews, Hindu's, Cathlics, Prodestants and the Chinese (hey, they don't really have religion over there, but they look different to us clean living white folk) :rolleyes:

Why didn't more people comment on the guy who left a loaded pistol in his carry-on in the US because he "forgot" (see Notices a few days ago - I don't know how to post the link). The only comments there were ones of understanding. So we accept gun-culture in the US but not elseware? Let try not to maintain double-standards.

The issue here is that the guy tried to take a pistol (real/replica, loaded/unloaded, it doesn't matter) on a flight. So well done to the Swedish Security and lets keep this focused on how to prevent anyone from getting on with such a weapon.

Fly747 - I have to agree with faheel, except that I would say that it's the dumbest idea I've heard on Pprune all week!

Cheers,

LP

To the contrary, the wind-up was directed at those who immediately bash Muslims.

Apologies Fly747