Security Roundup

Air Safety Week,  May 14, 2007  

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Date: 3-May
Incident: An Aeroflot captain and flight attendant were arrested at Toms?/ENTC,
Norway and detained by a court for 4 weeks. The flight attendant was visibly
drunk when she boarded the plane for the flight to Murmansk, and passengers
called the police. Breathalyzer test gave an alcohol level of 1,5 (limit 0,2).
F/A has admitted to drinking beer the night before, and to have taken medication
to calm herself before the flight. The Captain was arrested merely because he
was the commander - and responsible for the flight attendant's presence.

Date: 3-May
Incident: A fierce gun battle broke out at Havana's Jos? Marti Airport on
Thursday between police and three fugitive soldiers with AK47's trying to
commandeer a Cubana 737 to leave the country. The three men were young
conscripts who'd fled their military unit on Saturday near Managua, southeast of
Havana. The three hijacked a bus and then tried to take over an aircraft that
had just arrived from Santiago de Cuba at the east end of the island, but they
were thwarted by the crew locking the cockpit and baling out of a flightdeck
escape hatch.

Date: 5-May
Incident: Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced
legislation that would protect airline passengers from lawsuits when they, in
good faith, report that they suspect some of their fellow passengers are up to
no good. The Bill was born of an incident where six imams were removed from a
U.S. Airways plane on Nov 20th after making very public, and in no way
praiseworthy, voluble prayers and religious invocations. Now, the imams are
suing the airline ? and the passengers who reported them ? for profiling and
persecution.

Date: 5-May
Incident: A passenger on an Australian-bound plane vomited a nylon bag of white
powder suspected to be heroin, causing the plane to return to Vietnam. After
landing at Tan Son Nhut Airport, the man coughed up two more powder-filled bags.
He was detained by police and taken to hospital. Doctors found 30 red nylon bags
in 35-year-old Nguyen Kant's stomach. The Vietnam Airlines plane had been flying
for an hour after leaving Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday when the Australian man,
of Vietnamese descent, took ill.

Date: 7-May
Incident: 10th International Aviation, Maritime & Defense (AMD) 2007 Exhibition
will be held June 13 ? 16, 2007 at the Philippine Trade Training Center, Manila.
It's the only trade show of its kind in the Philippines, and will see the
participation of more than 200 companies from 32 countries. Visitors will
include Representatives of the Senate and Congress, Cabinet Secretaries,
Diplomatic Corps, foreign and local companies' decision makers, procurement
officers, technical officers, research & development officers, end-users,
foreign & local press. Exhibitors include those providing the latest equipment,
products and technologies covering air, land and sea sectors for commercial,
security, industrial and defense applications, Information & Communications
Technology.

Date: 8-May
Incident: The FBI is investigating the loss or theft of a TSA hard drive with
personnel details of 100,000 current and former employees. The TSA acknowledged
that the identities and personal details of current US air marshals were on the
missing hard drive, though it claims that the marshals would be hard to
individually identify in person. "When you can't even secure computers inside
TSA, it kind of makes you wonder," said Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vermont) at a Senate
Judiciary hearing on Tuesday.

Date: 8-May
Incident: A box cutter knife-tool found by a passenger on a United Airlines
plane delayed a flight from Denver to Dallas for nearly two hours. Federal
officers met the plane on the tarmac, re-screened all the passengers and
searched the aircraft. Flight 490 was taxiing out towards a runway at about
12:30 p.m. Tuesday when the passenger found the cutting tool.

Date: 9-May
Incident: Anthony Montoya, 20, of Spring Creek, Nevada was charged by a federal
complaint with attempting to have a suitcase containing an explosive detonator
loaded aboard a commercial airliner at the Syracuse International Airport in
violation of federal law. The Transportation Security Administration discovered
the device during their routine screening of checked luggage. The device was
secured by the Syracuse Police Department Hazardous Devices Unit. Penalty is up
to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

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