OK ... so a weak title. I'm basically trying to set up this news report about some whack job in Australia who used wooden stakes on an Australian airplane while trying to break into the cockpit.
According to an Australian newspaper:
"Conventional airport metal detectors failed to find the two 15cm wooden stakes allegedly wielded by the man at the centre of Thursday's armed attack aboard a Qantas jet."
Although 15 centimeters is more like bamboo knitting needles than a vampire stake, although it could be close to a tent stake. The article also says:
Federal Transport Minister John Anderson yesterday said all proposals for tougher action would be considered -- including body-length "pat-down" searches.Equally unable to alert security staff to passengers carrying plastic weapons, the detectors may give way to manual body checks.
"The privacy implications of patting people down are quite significant but we will obviously have to examine those matters," Mr Anderson said.
A friend of mine had been joking that flying should be like a spa -- you check your clothes at the door and you get into a robe and slippers for the duration of the flight. Between the news of the patdowns, and the nudist airline flights, we're converging on his humorous suggestion.
As for the attack itself:
A former member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry helped foil the hijacking of a domestic Australian airliner yesterday.
Derek Finlay, 30, originally from Fort McMurray, but now living in the state of Tasmania, said his training from seven years in the Canadian army came in handy when he launched himself at the hijacker.
An unemployed computer analyst has been charged with the hijack offence and with stabbing two flight attendants with wooden stakes as he allegedly attempted to break into the plane's cockpit.
David Mark Robinson, 40, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court. If convicted he could be imprisoned for life.
| Airplanes | Security |
Nudist flights? Purely pedestrian.
THIS is the future of naked air travel.
Another news story from Australia, complains about the fact that you can buy
" AN arsenal of potential weapons can be bought in shops beyond security checkpoints at Melbourne airport.
A Herald Sun investigation has found newsagents and souvenir shops inside the Qantas terminal sold lighters, safety razors and highly flammable aerosols.
A 40cm pencil with an extra sharp tip - more than double the length of the wooden stake the QF1737 hijacker used - was also bought by the Herald Sun."
This is the URL:
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6521648%255E421,00.html
Aren't we in the silly season ? This is why we lock cockpit doors, so that no matter how large the pencil, nobody can get in.
