But of all the insane security theatre in airports now the most window lickingly pointless is putting the bloody aircrew through it. I mean, think about it. You don't need to check to see if pilots have tucked away something they intend to use to gain access to the cockpit for a very obvious reason: it's where the airlines pay them to fucking be anyway. If one of them goes off his head and wants to kamikaze the plane I doubt there's much to stop him. So how many other people are being scanned pointlessly? Well, if the Israeli experience is any guide the answer is virtually everyone. Now one pilot has decided he's had enough of being treated as a suspect as well.
A Tennessee pilot is waiting to find out if he has lost his job because he refused to go through a full body scanner at a Memphis airport.And good for him. Now if all of us self loading freight can just follow his lead and refuse to accept our unjustified treatment as terrorist suspects by most airports then maybe, just maybe, flying anywhere might stop being the miserable and tedious experience it's become. Vote with your feet and your wallets - it's all they'll understand.
ExpressJet Airlines first officer Michael Roberts turned up for work on Monday but says he's tired of being manhandled by security agents and went home after deciding he didn't want to be patted down.
Roberts was chosen to go through the X-ray scanning machine at Memphis International airport before getting into the pilot seat to fly a commercial aircraft.
The Houston-based pilot walked off his job after declining to go through the security screening but has said he wants to go back to work.
The 35-year-old says he has an issue with the security procedure because he doesn't want to be 'harassed or molested without cause'.
microdave · 753 weeks ago
I joined a group of enthusiasts taking a short pleasure flight on a DC3 Dakota from our local airport 2 years ago, and we STILL had to take our shoes off and put cameras through the scanner. Did they seriously think any one of us intended to blow the old girl up??? Considering the abuse they suffered in the last war, I doubt we would have succeeded anyway. That apart, it was a great way to travel - ambling over the countryside at a mere 1500ft.
I would have to think very hard before getting on a jet these days...
Angry_Exile 90p · 753 weeks ago
@AmbushPredator · 753 weeks ago
Isn't there some speculation that this has already happened, with a flight from some Middle Eastern country that crashed into the sea?
My recent post Council In ‘Massive Hypocrites!’ Shock Yawn
Angry_Exile 90p · 753 weeks ago
microdave · 753 weeks ago
Angry_Exile 90p · 753 weeks ago
Hadn't heard about the incident where the FO went off it but as per the link in my reply to JuliaM's comment it's not unprecedented. In that case he waited for the captain to go to the lavvy, and of course in these post Sept 11 times when all the cockpit doors are armoured and lockable from the inside it becomes easier still. No need for O'Leary's single pilot bollocks, which I'm sure he has no real plans to do (I doubt many countries will let him fly single piloted large commercial aircraft in their airspace) and said purely to get a lot of free publicity from a very predictable media. When one pilot leaves the cockpit for any reason the other can quickly lock him out and then take his time setting the controls:
"Ladies and gentlemen, due to one of our aircrew going mad and our inability to get back into the cockpit to drag him off the controls we regret to announce that this flight will no longer be landing at it's scheduled destination. Instead we will be flying directly into the next world via the middle of a nearby mountain. Loose Sphincter Air would like to apologise for the inconveni..."