With all the recent security scares, it is important to keep in mind what security is actually doing to keep us safe.
Airportbusiness.com reports here on the details of United flight 923, from London to Washington-Dulles Airport, which was diverted to Boston’s Logan Airport yesterday. Two F-15s were scrambled to escort this plane in.
The cause was a 59-year old woman from Vermont. She apparently had succeeded in getting a screwdriver, a number of lighters, matches, and a bottle of water through security in her carryon bag. She apparently spouted several possibly terrorist-related items before urinating on the floor of the aircraft, after which the captain ordered her restrained.
This is why the Department of Homeland Security will be requiring airlines to give the government passenger lists for all U.S. international flights before takeoff. Currently, airlines submit these lists fifteen minutes after takeoff. Airlines have been reluctant to hand over these lists before because they fear it will cause delays if they have to wait for the names to be screened. This new regulation could be in effect by April.
The TSA has been dispatching bomb-sniffing dogs to airports, as well as preparing to implement new screening technologies. Various airports are participating in pilot programs for these new technologies.
Elsewhere, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, a man was arrested after calling in a bomb threat to keep his wife and children from flying out. The planes were thoroughly searched.
As noted here, an Excel Airways plane was escorted by an Italian F-16 into Brindisi, diverted en route to Hurghada, Egypt from London Gatwick after a threatening note was found on an air sickness bag.
The Houston Chronicle here reports that last week a note scrawled in an airplane bathroom on Jetblue 1263 from Boston to Austin, TX raised a heightened security alert. The note, written in what was assumed Arabic, prompted the entire flight to be questioned. The note turned out to be in Cyrillic and unrelated. Earlier that day, a man was arrested when an X-Ray machine found a semi-automatic handgun at the same airport.
So…there it is. Threatening barf bags, indecipherable graffiti, an irate husbamd, and crazy women from Vermont. We know we are sleeping better at night knowing that the world is safe from them.
