Archive » Airline Security

On alert. Plus: A first-hand report from a pilot on airline (in)security.

Chertie has chosen to lie in bed with the very people who make a living intimidating and suing vigilant Americans who take homeland security seriously.

Crying over spilled water.

Update: New WashTimes article on the report here. This weekend, dogged Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson previewed a Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s report on the handling–and mishandling–of Flight 327. Longtime readers will remember this incident as an airline security object lesson on the need for passengers to say something when they see something. [...]

Back in 2003, a teenager was arrested and charged for joking about a bomb in his luggage. In 2004, a British student was arrested and released after making a bomb joke before boarding a flight from Miami to Britain. We are constantly warned not to make light of homeland security while passing through airport checkpoints [...]

Christopher Soghoian, a PhD student in the School of Informatics at Indiana University Bloomington, created a fake boarding pass generator to expose flaws in airport security. A reader sent this link to the generator, but it looks like it has been taken down. Looks like he could be in big trouble for blowing the whistle. [...]

***scroll for updates, including new info from Annie Jacobsen (remember Flight 327?)…who were the ringleaders of Bojinka II (is there a better name? let me know)…here’s the reason for the liquid ban: ABC says the jihadists were going to hide the explosives in sports drink bottles…reports of dry runs…USNews now also reporting details involving hydrogen [...]

***updated…10pm Eastern-new details about Haq via AP – he “forced his way through a security door by holding a gun to a 13-year-old girl’s head”…told 911 dispatcher, “These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East…”*** ***new photo of Haq via [...]

***scroll for updates…university library cancels its NYT subscription!…and the WSJ explains the circumstances that led the newspaper to publish its SWIFT story…read the whole thing…the NYTimes covers the House resolution condemning the paper…*** I mentioned the other day that I’d been hearing buzz about a protest at the New York Times building. It’s coming together [...]

But don’t worry. He’s been sent to…Saudi Arabia! Great, just great: New Zealand has deported a Yemeni man identified as having direct links with the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States who was taking pilot training in the country this year, the government said Saturday. Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali [...]

Annie Jacobsen investigates.

***scroll down for an important update*** A number of us in the blogosphere have been catching wind of rumors that a surface-to-air missile was fired at an America West flight originating out of New York. Here’s a post at Little Green Footballs, where many commenters are wisely skeptical but wanting more info. I just got [...]

The kill-me-first dress code is dead. It’s good news for air marshals who exposed this reckless bureaucratic idiocy last December. Via the Washington Post: The dress code for federal air marshals has been modified, apparently relegating a fashion spat to the back of the Homeland Security closet. The issue of what the marshals wear when [...]

Via AP this morning: A flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to Boston early Tuesday because three Pakistani passengers were acting suspiciously, but nothing amiss was found and the three were released after questioning, authorities said. United Airlines Flight 934 landed in Boston shortly before 3 a.m., Logan Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella said. [...]

You’ve seen some of the news coverage by now of Bassam Khalaf, the self-proclaimed “crazy, suicidal Arabic” rapper fired from his job as a TSA baggage screener. But did you know that he’s not the only Islamist who has been poking through your luggage? Debbie Schlussel has the lowdown on both. Repeat: Political correctness is [...]

How do you know when an air marshals’ spokesman is spinning? When his lips are moving. Here’s Federal Air Marshals Service spokesman Dave Adams on the reinstatement this week of air marshal whistleblower Frank Terreri, who filed a civil liberties lawsuit against the agency after being suspended for criticizing FAMS director Tom Quinn last October [...]

Two Seaworld penguins walked into an airport… Click here for the whole slideshow. My question: Why is it that TSA is allowed to use its metal detectors for a little photo-op fun, but the rest of us are subject to criminal penalties for making inappropriate jokes in an airport? (Hat tip: Bruce Schneier)

You all remember Annie Jacobsen, whose article about Northwest flight 327 set the blogosphere abuzz last summer. Don’t miss her latest installment, in which she recounts a visit she got from four federal Homeland Security Department officials. Here’s the most interesting part: For the record, I explained, I had never heard of the James Woods [...]

According to a yet another report, airline security is no better today than it was on Sept. 10, 2001: The report said there was a “lack of improvement” since similar tests were conducted at 15 airports in 2003. Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner told a Senate committee this year that TSA screeners “fared no [...]

Walter Williams takes on the TSA in “Stupid airport security.” An excerpt: I’ve solved my problem with the TSA. They have their procedures, and I have mine. Mine include minimizing my exposure to stupidity. Therefore, where I used to board a commercial flight three or four times a month, over the last three years, I’ve [...]

This just in from the London Times: A BRITON who trained as a pilot at the same American flight school as two of the September 11 hijackers has been arrested after an international terror alert issued by the FBI. Senior security sources yesterday said Zayead Christopher Hajaig, 35, a white Briton born in Nigeria, had [...]

So, 19 foreign hijackers infiltrate America, take flying lessons, and murder 3,000 people. And nearly four years later, illegal aliens are still able to enroll in U.S. flight schools and leave the country without getting caught: ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — An anti-terrorism task force headed by the FBI has issued a special alert bulletin concerning [...]

Yesterday morning, TSA workers at the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport thought they saw an x-ray of a gun in someone’s carry-on bag. So, naturally, they let the passenger proceed to the gate with his bag. Then it dawned on someone that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. So TSA evacuated the entire airport [...]

A few months back, I blogged about a rash of laser beam incidents. Today, one of the suspects in a New Jersey case who was accused of pointing a green laser beam at a small passenger jet, temporarily blinding the pilot and co-pilot, was indicted under the federal anti-terror Patriot Act: David W. Banach, who [...]

Airline security gets a bad report card from the Coalition of Airline Pilots Association. More here. Related: – The “Kill Me First Dress Code” – Air Rage – Air Rage, Pt. II – Dressed for Failure – Another Air Marshal Outrage – Update on the Air Marshals – Another Fine Air Marshals’ Mess

One of the most important national security stories covered in my column and on this blog has been the ongoing turmoil at the Federal Air Marshal Service under Director Thomas “Queeg” Quinn. When last we visited the beleaguered bureaucracy, Quinn was shepherding his celebrity friend Lyle Lovett around the FAMS top-secret training facility and blabbing [...]

My good friend and fellow Philadelphia Daily News columnist Michael Smerconish has an important and incredible column today about the airline worker in Maine who encountered Mohammed Atta on 9/11: MICHAEL Tuohey “stared the devil in the eyes and didn’t recognize him.” Now he kicks himself for not having acted, although if he had, our [...]

Exclusive photo. Credit: michellemalkin.com. Country singer Lyle Lovett (left) jokes around on a private tour of the air marshals training facility in Washington, D.C. The embattled head of the Federal Air Marshals Service, Tom Quinn, is up to no good again. When he’s not bullying rank-and-file marshals for blowing the whistle on idiotic dress code [...]

Lots of increased chatter over the last week about an imminent resignation from Tom Quinn, the top fashion cop at the Federal Air Marshals Service. Last Wednesday, marshals got word of a new special FAMS “advisory board” being formed to investigate marshals’ concerns over the infamous dress code, hiring practices, and other issues. Here’s the [...]

Read this gun owner’s account of her dealings with federal homeland security officials in Seattle. A snippet: Once inside the police station I was taken to a small, windowless room with one chair and a steel bench. The faces of the officers I passed asked: “Is that the Gun Woman?” Three or four officers came [...]