In the 30-odd years that luggage has been x-rayed, has a bomb ever been found? And of all the passengers that have walked through metal detectors, has anyone ever been arrested and convicted of planning a hijacking?
One could make the argument that the presence of airport security has prevented countless acts of violence. But I don’t recall ever hearing of actual foiled plots. Anyone?
Well, they caught Harry Connick, Jr. at the airport with a gun. I mean, not that he was planning on forcing a planeload of people to listen to him sing, but he was stopped.
Airport security isnt designed to actually catch somebody trying to carry a bomb onto a plane so much as to stop them from even contemplating carrying on a bomb.
While you might not see any people beig caught, I am sure there are cases where, if there were no airport security, crazy people WOULD have strapped a bomb to themselves and blown up a plane.
Psychiatrist: Why do you keep whistling?
Patient: To keep the tigers away.
Psychiatrist: But there aren’t any tigers for several hundred miles around here.
Patient: See how well it works?!
I hasten to agree with Shalmanese; I think no but is allowable here. Although I think that this is a legitimate question, the title of the thread is completely misleading. Even should the answer to the questions raised in the OP be “no”, the answer to the thread title is almost certainly “yes”.
In one news report on the LAX shooting, I was reading how El Al’s security has set the standard for airport security worldwide. Sometime in the mid-1980s a bomb was discovered by their security, which a terrorist had placed into his girlfriend’s luggage.
Consider how few planes have been hijacked since the checkin security has been implemented. Note, however, that no one hijacked a plane with a 2 inch penknife either, so what is the point of banning them?
That reminds me. One of the upscale kitchen supply places (I think it was Williams-Sonoma) sells a ceramic knife they claim is the sharpest knife you will see. So what is to stop someone from strapping one to their leg and hijacking a plane with that?
Worried yet…
Three weeks ago I left the UK to go to Prague, on the way out they stopped my SO - took a small manicure set from her hand-luggage and said we can’t take it on board it becuase it contained (tiny) nail scissors and a cuticle pushing thingy. We protested, they showed us a plastic box full of other people’s scissors (and toy guns! ?!) - We bought a Jiffy bag, posted the kit (though it never got home, bastard Royal Mail) and got on the plane. Fine, we thought. However, I am in a relevant industry and routinely carry 10A scalpel blades with me. A security officer went through my wallet at the metal detector and didn’t find them. I only remembered when in my seat :smack:
When we got to Prague my SO found she had her penknife in the side pocket of her bag & produced a 3.5 inch blade! :eek:
[I’m more bitter about the bastard postman who stole her nail kit - it was the only thing damaged in a motorbike accident that she has no memory of.]
A box cutter’s exposed blade is shorter than two inches. They worked quite well on September 11.
In 1991, I was flying back home to California from Chicago. This was right after they tore down the old Comisky Park, and I bought two bricks as souviniers. So I’m going through O’Hare with these two bricks in my carry-on bag and they didn’t even open my bag at the checkpoint. The lady just asked “What are those?”, and I said “Bricks from Comisky Park”. “Oh”. Then I pick up my bag and continue on. You wouldn’t believe what they looked like on the monitor. Two oblong cubes that could have been anything; plastique, heroin. The fact that the inspector asked me what they were proved that she was totally clueless. After that I knew it was only a matter of time before terrorists would target domestic U.S. flights. I was surprised it took 10 years.
Let’s not forget that it was a screener who rated out the two drunken pilots in Florida last week. IMHO, that’s almost as good as catching a terrorist.
To add another pointless anecdote: I flew to London last month and on the way back forgot that I had an umbrella in my backback (it’s a small umbrella). No one said a thing, but I can’t imagine it would have looked good on the scanner. Metal spikey things all over it! That’s not worse than a knitting needle? A wee bit scarey, that.