Thought I would share this with you all. Would you have done the same or did I over react? I feel quite embarrassed about it now.
So there we were in the departure lounge at Lanzarote waiting for the last flight of the day, Flyglobespan to Glasgow, when my wife says, “I don’t like the look of him, he looks agitated and what has he got in that pouch?!”
Looking round I saw a man in his early 20’s and he did look agitated, he was sitting still but his knee was bouncing.
“Don’t be silly”, I said to my wife.
But you know how things play on your mind? Like when she says half way to the airport, “Did you turn the gas off?” I looked at the guy again and realised he was travelling alone. Unusual for a holiday flight I thought. When he got up for a closer look at the departures screen I asked him him if he was waiting for the Glasgow flight. He said he was but he spoke in a foreign accent. He said he had been on holiday with his girlfriend.
So I’m sitting beside a foreign man who’s just told me he’s been on holiday with his girlfriend, but who’s travelling alone in an agitated manner carrying a strange looking pouch!…and now we are getting up to queue for the flight. Of course with all that’s been going recently you can imagine what I’m thinking.
So I decide to challenge him, as he was still on his own, ” Have you lost your girlfriend?”, I said.
It turns out that he was on holiday with his girlfriend who lives in Lanzarote. He had turned up late for the flight and had to rush through security having been told the flight was ready to leave. When he got to the gate the flight had not started to board yet so was worried he had missed it. In his pouch he had his keys, money etc. All the essentials with no need for hand baggage. He lives in Scotland and works in a hotel near Perth.
So I felt a bit of a fool and sorry I had thought the worst of the guy. I guess I’m a victim of the state of mind we have all been put in due to recent events.
Has anyone else found themselves in a similar situation?
By: kevinwm - 30th August 2006 at 22:58
Most warning that have been issued by the police have asked the general public to be aware of others and to report anything which they believe to suspicious, In This case I thing You have done the right thing , no harm has been done and you;re suspicion’s have been alaid
I’m sorry but These so called professional screeners ,have on more than one occasion failed , my wife was stopped because they had seen what they believed to be knife in her luggage , she was stopped an the bag searched , nothing found , the reply of the so called Professional Screener ” Must have been another Bag” now dose that install confidense in these guys
nothing is fool proof espically when a human is involved
By: wawkrk - 30th August 2006 at 20:23
The hysteria reminds me of the Yorkshire Ripper days.
Everybody was a suspect, especially Geordies.
I took 110 flights last year. If every time you saw someone who was not exactly like yourself, should you be afraid?
Not perfect I know, but we must trust the security people to do their jobs.
I have to comment though, it seems that the once per year bucket and spade flyers are the ones most likely to suspect everybody.
By: rdc1000 - 30th August 2006 at 10:29
.
The BM 737 incident is not an appropriate comparison – for one it is an incident where it was grossly evident what was wrong which meant even a layman was capable of forming a reasonably reliable judgement, and for two any input from cabin to flight deck wouldn’t be so easy to implement anyway these days because of the locked door policy
I know what you’re saying about the insecurities and personally I agree, don’t fly if you have those issues. But I still believe that in MEASURED amounts then there is nothing wrong with vigilence on the part of passengers, whether it be for security or safety. You haven’t said anything about Richard Reid, if you believe that passengers shouldn’t make judgments and decisions then there would have been another aircraft in the Atlantic. As humans we make mistakes and terrorists seek flaws in the system, so there is always a chance that someone or something will one day slip through, just as Richard Reid did.
With regards to the BM incident, my point was not about the incident per-se, it was about the fact that we always presume that the professionals have got our backs, and so we tend to keep quiet. It is worse when it is glaringly obvious what is wrong because then you REALLY do expect the professionals to see what you see, even though that is not always true, as applies in this case. Although the BM incident was a safety issue, the same could always be applied to security. With regards to locked door policy….crews can communicate you know, its called a telephone. :diablo:
By: Ren Frew - 29th August 2006 at 22:49
I sat in the GLA departure hall 4 years ago next to a fellow of asian appearance who was thumbing through an airbus flight manual. I have to say it didn’t bother me in the slightest, lo and behold the flight was uneventful.
By: Skymonster - 29th August 2006 at 22:44
You cannot keep on doing that – you have to draw the line somewhere and accept that those placed in a position of responsibility, be they pilots or security screeners or whatever, are doing what they are paid to do. We just do not have the knowledge and experience to make reliable judgements. If we do not do that, the ultimate logical conclusion is that we don’t fly anywhere ever, because our personal insecurities would mean we don’t trust anyone, whether seen or unseen, to ensure our safety.
The BM 737 incident is not an appropriate comparison – for one it is an incident where it was grossly evident what was wrong which meant even a layman was capable of forming a reasonably reliable judgement, and for two any input from cabin to flight deck wouldn’t be so easy to implement anyway these days because of the locked door policy
By: rdc1000 - 29th August 2006 at 17:00
Absolute non-sensical paranoia. You have no idea what might worry a passenger, and no skills in profiling likely threats. Would you challenge a guy walking down the street because he looked a bit shifty or because he’d got a foreign accent? Would you even call the cops about such a person in the streets, if they weren’t actually committing a crime? No, I didn’t think so. Mind your own business, ignore the other passengers, trust the security clearing of passengers to the professionals who do it day in day out, and sit back and enjoy the ride.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with raising GENUINE suspicions, lets face it the “shoe bomber” (Richard Reid) was only stopped from detonating his explosions because of wary passengers and crew ON BOARD the aircraft. The paranoia is an issue, in that it has got carried away, but I don’t think I agree with your ‘leave it to the professionals’ opinion because occasionally they do get it wrong.
This is a similar attitude to that taken by passengers and cabin crew on board the British Midland 737 that crashed at Kegworth, they all blatantly saw which engine was on fire and assumed the pilots knew too, but instead the pilots had made a mistake and shut down the wrong engine. It is beleived that had the cabin crew told the pilots then the aircraft may have made it to the runway. I think the same applies here because unfortunately safety nets go wrong and people are often aware of what is going on around them. What is unfortunate is that a cross section of society are too biggoted to be able to take a SENSIBLE view.
By: Skymonster - 29th August 2006 at 16:37
Absolute non-sensical paranoia. You have no idea what might worry a passenger, and no skills in profiling likely threats. Would you challenge a guy walking down the street because he looked a bit shifty or because he’d got a foreign accent? Would you even call the cops about such a person in the streets, if they weren’t actually committing a crime? No, I didn’t think so. Mind your own business, ignore the other passengers, trust the security clearing of passengers to the professionals who do it day in day out, and sit back and enjoy the ride.
By: symon - 29th August 2006 at 16:32
After around 20 minutes, I went and found a security guy to report the bags. The security guy, and get this, barely raised an eyebrow! He came over and checked and within a few minutes the guys came back; he never even told them off
Don’t know about that situation in particular, but generally at UK airports that isn’t seen as a great threat as the bags have already passed through the screening process and have presumably been given the OK already. Would be a different story if it was at check in.
By: EK. - 29th August 2006 at 16:20
I had the same “mind games” last week when I flew from Cancun to Glasgow. Two men aged I would say mid 20s travelling alone, one got sat next to us in the middle of the cabin and seemed very agitated for the whole flight. When taxing out to the runway he was reading a newspaper that was not in English.
Turned out he was in Mexico for a wedding and it was only his second flight, his first being Glasgow to Cancun.
By: Pembo330 - 29th August 2006 at 15:59
Umble; you did exactly the right thing, you weren’t rude and you sought out the facts. All seems pretty sensible to me.
Let me give you an example of mine from a couple of years ago, well before the latest issues so agitated people weren’t at the forefront of the mind…
I was in JFK at the departure lounge waiting to board a KLM flight back to AMS. In the lounge were two guys, extremely scruffy in appearance and in my eyes, appeared drunk or worse. They were agressive and rude to fellow passengers and they kept moving seats around the lounge, often leaving their bags where they were initially. At one point, both men departed the lounge and left their bags unattended. I waited a few minutes, than quarter of an hour and there was still no sign of them. After around 20 minutes, I went and found a security guy to report the bags. The security guy, and get this, barely raised an eyebrow! He came over and checked and within a few minutes the guys came back; he never even told them off. The guys continued to pester other passengers for change for telephone or a light for their cigarette. When boarding was announced, they went straight to the front of the queue; I nor any of my fellow fliers challenged them. The flight was thankfully uneventful, but in the wee hours in Amsterdam, I saw them barge off the plane in the same rude and unpleasant manner. I personally felt uncomfortable around them and moreso felt unhappy at the lack of concern for their behaviour in the U.S.
By: rdc1000 - 29th August 2006 at 13:25
Well at least you didn’t do a AGP-MAN on him!!!! I think that there is a problem because in many, but not all cases this seems to be spreading to a certain cross section of our society. You did the right thing I think, you subtly asked questions to which there were logical answers, but if you look at the recent case of the AGP-MAN flight then it was ludicrous. I flew from Ibiza to Glasgow on September 12th 2001 and had NO concerns about stepping aboard a charter aircraft on this route because personally I don’t see why extremists would even bother looking at charter flights of this sort. Surely their aim would be major scheduled carriers on routes between countries which they view as the enemy? The problem is that the cross section of society that is getting carried away probably rarely steps on board the types of flights which I think would be targeted.
A friend of mine works for Monarch as cabin crew. When I spoke to her about the AGP-MAN incident I said “it just goes to show the type of people that fly between AGP and MAN”, funnily enough she expanded my sentance… “..with Monarch!” :dev2:
Sign In
August 29, 2006 at 1:05 pm