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How terror trip taught me a lesson in airline safety

A disturbing experience on a transatlantic flight convinced Ed Curran of the need for full-body scanners at airports

Wednesday, 10 March 2010

Imagine flying across the Atlantic and coming to the conclusion that you might have a suicide shoe-bomber sitting beside you. It happened to me a week ago on what I can only describe as the most frightening flight of my life.

Maybe all my years in Northern Ireland encountering so many bomb scares fired a degree of paranoia. But what happened on United Airlines flight 619 from Washington to London has left me with serious doubts about airline security.

The two passengers sitting next to me behaved strangely throughout the flight. Male and female, they refused to fasten their seat-belts at take-off and, surprisingly, none of the airline staff enforced the rule.

Their behaviour across the Atlantic was so eccentric that I drew it to the attention of the cabin staff, one of whom said they would "keep an eye on them".

Approaching London, I had cause for even more alarm. Once again, the two passengers, wearing heavy overcoats, ignored the seat-belt instructions.

At that point a stewardess stood in front of the female passenger and fastened her seat-belt. Her male partner, who clasped his hands together in prayer for much of the flight, reluctantly fastened his own belt.

No sooner had the Boeing begun its descent over southern England than he began to roll back each trouser leg and remove his shoes and socks and then replace his shoes.

Then he unbuckled his seat-belt, stood up for the first time in six hours and 40 minutes of the flight and walked up the centre aisle.

A steward approached him and allowed him to enter the toilet - even though the plane was now descending fast. I don't now how many eyes were focused on that closed toilet door, but the sense of apprehension in the faces around me was palpable. It seemed like an eternity before the errant passenger reappeared and a steward directed him down the aisle to take his seat just as the plane hit the Heathrow runway.

The experience reinforced for me the reality of terror in the sky. Sitting in an aircraft, 37,000ft over the Atlantic, there is nowhere to go, no escape and, confronted by passengers behaving suspiciously, a total sense of helplessness.

The nonchalant manner with which the male passenger was allowed to walk through the plane and enter the toilet during the landing approach, and to remain out of sight and control for around five minutes, was simply incredible and extraordinarily alarming.

Afterwards, I complained to the United Airlines desk. I was informed that an armed air marshal was probably on board the flight, as is most likely the case on high-risk routes between the United States and the UK.

However, I wondered what difference the marshal's presence would have made had the passenger beside me turned out to be a suicide-bomber. Would he - could he - have shot the suspect through the toilet door and saved our lives?

I note that President Obama had provided funds for the swift introduction of full-body scanners at American airports.

The only assurance for today's apprehensive air travellers must be that everyone is searched and screened to the nth degree. That cannot be achieved without total body scanning.

My journey on board that United Airlines Boeing leads me to hope that the sooner these scanners are introduced everywhere - including Northern Ireland - the safer it will be for everyone.

Ed Curran’s column appears in Monday’s Belfast Telegraph

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Catch a grip Ed! Worry more about the flu/cold/dodgy heart etc.

Those are what will get us in the end: not exploding airplanes.

Posted by Steve | 17.03.10, 15:29 GMT

It might have been the Air Marshall. Safety action?

When today's planes age out, ask them to replace them with planes with the Escape Pod designs. The idea requires redesign of the plan fuselage, to allow the passenger section to be constructed of ejectable pods - the pods serve like bulwarks on a ship - they protect the rest, when a thing disturbs one section...and they eject to let the passengers escape to land or sea till rescue finds them if the plane is going to go down. It also would isolate any terrorists to their one pod area.
With today's tech its affordable and technically practical, but they won't do it and the public might help with this poor blindsided attitude.
It is not really their fault - aero people came up with this idea 50 years ago, so that a plane trip might not become a deathtrap - but they were truly "hooted out of the ballpark" - too farfetched. And now they won't bring the idea up from the deep hole in which it was buried in embarassment.

Posted by Elle Fagan | 12.03.10, 04:05 GMT

Everyone's concerned about their fellow passengers but what about pilots? Everyday hundreds of planes laden with fuel take off from Western airports, piloted by pilots from the Middle-East and elsewhere. They don't have to bring any explosives on board. All they have to do is guide their planes in a matter of seconds into whatever target they choose. The best security in the world won't stop them. I hope these pilots are being closely monitored but I get a horrible feeling that they're not.

I fear a repeat of 9/11 on a much larger scale is very possible unless something is done like flight restrictions from certain countries etc. No time to be pc here when thousands of lives are at stake.

Posted by ThierryMcCheat | 11.03.10, 20:32 GMT

Absolutely insipid. I live in New York, and with this mindset I would have a fit over every other person that gets on the subway. No body-scanner technology is going to help, the problem is you.

Posted by Brian | 11.03.10, 16:44 GMT

Hands folded in prayer and acting erratically? Obviously a Christian fundamentalist terrorist inspiring fear among the infidels then. Maybe NATO could invade Carrickfergus on a Sunday afternoon to round these people up and keep them incognito at the Maze.

Posted by Sartorius | 11.03.10, 13:27 GMT

What a terrible piece of "journalism"! Admit it, I bet you gave them the "once over", long before they started to act strangely. "The sooner these scanners are introduced the better"
The man says "jump", and you say"how high?" Why don't you just let them barcode you?

Posted by Sasquatch | 11.03.10, 12:18 GMT

So, a flight on which nothing actually happened has convinced you that all air passengers need to be subjected to a demeaning and embarrassing procedure?

Why the irrational fear of dying on board an aeroplane? Given that there are no impediments to a terrorist carrying a bomb onto a crowded bus or train, should we have body scanners at all stations, or better yet, outside all of our front doors, so no terrorists can enter any public area?

What is actually needed is a commonsense approach to security, whereby passengers are profiled according to their backgrounds and searched accordingly. Given that most passengers check-in online in advance of their flights, this would obviate the need for most of the security measures at the airport.

Posted by Richard | 10.03.10, 16:42 GMT