9 FEBRUARY: MELBOURNE A Taser gun fell out of a cabin bag when the overhead lockers of a Virgin Australia flight were being closed for the flight’s departure to Adelaide. The bag’s owner was removed from the flight.
11 FEBRUARY: BORNEO
Residents of the city of Palangkaraya forced their way onto Tjilik Riwut Airport’s apron and runway to search for Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) officials, who had flown to Palangkaraya on a Sriwijaya Air flight to inaugurate the provincial branch of the organisation. The airport’s management ordered the FPI members to remain on board the aircraft while other passengers disembarked; the four FPI members were then flown to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan. The protesters dispersed only after they were assured by the airport operator that none of the FPI members had got off the plane. The success of the protest encouraged anti-FPI protests elsewhere in Indonesia in the days that followed.
24 FEBRUARY: NEW YORK
The pilot of a Southwest Airlines flight, en route from Baltimore to Long Island, caused panic when he made an announcement wishing the mother of an air traffic controller a “Happy Birthday”. Unfortunately, when he said “we have a mom on board” many of the passengers thought he said “we have a bomb on board”.
26 FEBRUARY: LONDON GATWICK Reports emerge that David Jones, the 67-year-old creator of Fireman Sam, was detained by Gatwick security after he made a remark about a woman wearing a hijab. Jones was placing his carry-on items into a tray, including a scarf, for X-ray examination when a woman, wearing a hijab, then passed through, without showing her face, allegedly prompting Jones to question whether he could have worn his scarf over his face instead. Jones eventually boarded his flight but refused to apologise and denied he had made a racist comment; he agreed that his comment could be considered offensive.
18 FEBRUARY: TURKS & CAICOS Dr. Colette Vieau, her husband and their two daughters (aged 2 and 3) where ordered to disembark a JetBlue flight preparing to depart for Boston when their 2-year-old, Nathalie, threw a tantrum and refused to sit down. The parents eventually got her buckled in, but the Captain was allegedly not satisfied that the parents were in control of the situation and ordered them off the plane.
20 FEBRUARY: IN-AMENAS, ALGERIA Reports emerge that Algerian security services uncovered a large cache of weapons, including 43 missiles, buried in the sand at In-Amenas. The missiles could have posed a threat to flights using Zarzaitine Airport.
21 FEBRUARY: SEATTLE
An Alaska Airlines flight attendant allegedly refused to allow passengers off the aircraft on its arrival in Seattle from Miami as one of the airline’s rental digiplayers (hand-held in-flight entertainment system) had not been returned. The airline apologised for her actions.
April 2012 Aviationsecurityinternational
28 FEBRUARY: BORACAY, PHILIPPINES A suspected IED was found in cargo at Kalibo International Airport, being the provincial airport that serves the resort island of Boracay. The item was allegedly dropped off in an envelope at an airport-based cargo forwarding company and was addressed to an individual in Mindanao. The package was examined by Police, and found to contain the electric motor brake from a golf cart. Despite initial media reports claiming that an IED had been found, no explosives were found.
29 FEBRUARY: CAIRO
Mohammed Ibrahim Makkaw was arrested on his arrival in Cairo from Dubai as he was believed to be one of al-Qaeda's most senior commanders - Saif al-Adel, Bin Laden's former security chief. However, it was a case of
mistaken identity; the man’s name simply matched one of al-Adel's aliases.
29 FEBRUARY: BASEL, SWITZERLAND An Air France flight, en route from Paris to Tel Aviv, diverted to Basel-Mulhouse on suspicion that an explosive device could be on board when a beeping sound was heard. An extensive search of the aircraft was performed, and the passengers were accommodated at a hotel overnight. The flight reached Tel Aviv the next afternoon. The cause – a Blackberry device that a passenger had failed to turn off prior to departure!
29 FEBRUARY: LIHUE, HAWAII
A TSA screener’s concern about a breast pump and some empty bottles
resulted in Amy Strand, who was flying from Lihue to Maui with her 9-month old baby, Eva, being asked to fill the bottles before boarding. She was able to do so in the airport’s toilets, but felt humiliated by the request and filed a complaint.
2 MARCH: NEWARK
A woman was found to be carrying two replica hand grenades, modified for
use as manual cars’ gear handles (could be screwed onto a gear stick), as she was about to board a flight to Mexico.
4 MARCH: MIAMI Tulisa Contostavlos, the 23-year-old British X Factor judge and member of the band N-Dubz, was stopped at Miami Airport. The celebrity ended up admitting that her bag was pulled for search due to a vibrator that she had packed having accidentally turned on.
5 MARCH: HOUSTON A Southwest Airlines flight from Houston to Dallas was cancelled after a passenger spotted a box cutter in the plane's overhead bin.
6 MARCH: NANNING, CHINA A passenger on an Air China flight en route from Sanya to Beijing found a string of fire crackers on board and handed them to the crew, resulting in the aircraft diverting to Nanning.
10 MARCH: KUWAIT Parts of Kuwait Airport were evacuated and searched after three unattended bags were discovered in the departures area; one of the bags was found to contain a book on how to build a bomb.
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