The other day, in the midst of all the hype and fuss about planes about to blow up in the sky and dangerous water bottles, a 12-year-old boy, sans ticket or passport, managed to board a plane routing from Gatwick. (Ummm…. that would be London.)
Yup, they’re all over this terrorism thing. Maybe they think nobody’s interested in attacking Lisbon? Hard to explain otherwise.
Bad enough, but I’m totally lost on how this could happen:
FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz confirmed Thursday that authorities found a screwdriver and an unspecified number of cigarette lighters in her bag, items that are banned under new security regulations. Marcinkiewicz also confirmed that matches were found in Mayo’s bag.
She also had a bottle of water, which did not appear to be supplied by the flight crew. It wasn’t clear how the items made it through airport security, which has been significantly tightened since the terror plot arrests.
This is the woman who caused the diversion of United 923 to Logan Airport yesterday. Judging from the article, there’s clearly something seriously wrong with her, but that’s not what’s got my goat.
What I wanna know is how the heck she could board… from London… with all that stuff, when I couldn’t get on board from a piddly regional airport with Chapstick and had the devil’s own time explaining my daughter’s birthday gift of an empty blown-glass perfume bottle? (Let’s just not talk about the Robitussin for that same daughter… k?)
Clearly I’m not understanding something about how this is supposedly working. Just as well, though, since I’m not planning to book any flights for the next decade or two anway.
Driving looks really good to me these days.
I’m waiting for that woman’s family to step forward and say, “OMG, how did they let mom out of the Home without her straightjacket & meds?”
As for the lighters, well, she probably had a prescription for them, and apparently you didn’t have one for the over-the-counter Robitussin, you naughty near-terrorist. Anyway, I’d much rather see a planeful of people die from influenza (caught from a hacking teenager on a plane) than allow the teen to sip discreetly from a bottle of cherry-flavored explosives.
Smukke said: “Anyway, I’d much rather see a planeful of people die from influenza (caught from a hacking teenager on a plane) than allow the teen to sip discreetly from a bottle of cherry-flavored explosives.”
I can’t help it, Smukke. I keep seeing the repercussive belch that would result from that discreet sipping…. (begone, foul and distracting images!)
“Driving looks really good to me these days.”
Yeah… I am trying to figure out how to get my employer to OK me driving from Houston to Vegas (I have a conference I am scheduled to attend. Really.) Even before the latest, I have just been feeling like the hassle of airport security isn’t worth it (people using medical equipment get singled out for special treatment – have you ever seen a 379-lb man strip-tease in front of a TSA agent? Oh the Huge Manatee! 🙂
~EdT.