brightnorm
Flashaholic
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2001
- Messages
- 7,160
In my previous report (see thread "Flashlights and airport insecurity”
, I expressed my dismay at what I thought was lax airport security when I flew between two major East Coast cities.
I'm happy to report that on a very recent flight on the same airline (American) between the same two cities, although the airport of departure was still rather perfunctory in its procedures, the return flight from Miami airport was a model of thoroughness and professionalism, including the approach to examining my five flashlights.
On this flight I had the ASP Taclite/(Triad), two extra 123a's taped end-to-end, the Inova X5, UK 2-L, ARC AAA Le, and Photon Microlite II..
Passing through the metal detectors took considerable time. As I emptied my pockets and pouches containing the flashlights into the basket to be placed on the conveyor belt, the security agent looked more and more incredulous as each new flashlight appeared, until she finally broke into a grin and said "that's a lot of flashlights". I agreed with her.
After I passed through the scanner and was about to collect my things from the conveyor belt, another agent motioned me over to a table where she went through all my luggage and the basket containing my lights. Her comment: "What are those?" I said they're flashlights. She picked up the Asp and tried to turn it on, unsuccessfully of course since I had deactivated the bezel. I turned it on for her, and demonstrated all the other lights. She seemed especially intrigued by the Inova X5 and the ARC AAA Le, and insisted in opening up the Inova, taking out the batteries and poking her finger inside. Though serious and business-like, she was at all times polite and correct, and never arrogant. After she OK'd me another agent, also a woman, motioned me over, asked me to remove my shoes and carefully scanned them with a small scanner with what appeared to be a small piece of tissue or paper towel about one inch in diameter attached to the tip. Then she inserted the paper into a small machine which, after a few seconds granted an OK. It was a newly installed, highly sophisticated scanner that could "smell" the slightest trace of explosive chemicals. The agent knew I had been cleared by the previous agent, but still showed considerable curiosity about the Inova, asking me to demonstrate it and finally letting me continue on my way.
When boarding was announced the line was split in two, the left line proceeding to the plane, while the right consisted of those randomly selected for searching. The "search line" contained, by my very rough estimate about 30%- 50% of passengers, a much larger proportion than the expected "1 in 5". All "search line" passengers were instructed to remove their shoes and place their bags for a hand search. Then we were each instructed to assume the "crucifixion pose" and were very thoroughly hand-scanned, while our shoes were hand-scanned and manually searched.
At every step of the way the agents/guards had been highly professional, alert and competent. All-in-all an impressive performance bearing almost no resemblance to my first post-9/11 flying experience.
Finally cleared to board, I felt relatively secure for the first time since 9/l1. I give American Airlines and the Miami Airport great credit and I can only hope that these procedures and the future use of even more highly sophisticated technology will eventually become the norm rather than the exception.
Best regards,
Brightnorm
I'm happy to report that on a very recent flight on the same airline (American) between the same two cities, although the airport of departure was still rather perfunctory in its procedures, the return flight from Miami airport was a model of thoroughness and professionalism, including the approach to examining my five flashlights.
On this flight I had the ASP Taclite/(Triad), two extra 123a's taped end-to-end, the Inova X5, UK 2-L, ARC AAA Le, and Photon Microlite II..
Passing through the metal detectors took considerable time. As I emptied my pockets and pouches containing the flashlights into the basket to be placed on the conveyor belt, the security agent looked more and more incredulous as each new flashlight appeared, until she finally broke into a grin and said "that's a lot of flashlights". I agreed with her.
After I passed through the scanner and was about to collect my things from the conveyor belt, another agent motioned me over to a table where she went through all my luggage and the basket containing my lights. Her comment: "What are those?" I said they're flashlights. She picked up the Asp and tried to turn it on, unsuccessfully of course since I had deactivated the bezel. I turned it on for her, and demonstrated all the other lights. She seemed especially intrigued by the Inova X5 and the ARC AAA Le, and insisted in opening up the Inova, taking out the batteries and poking her finger inside. Though serious and business-like, she was at all times polite and correct, and never arrogant. After she OK'd me another agent, also a woman, motioned me over, asked me to remove my shoes and carefully scanned them with a small scanner with what appeared to be a small piece of tissue or paper towel about one inch in diameter attached to the tip. Then she inserted the paper into a small machine which, after a few seconds granted an OK. It was a newly installed, highly sophisticated scanner that could "smell" the slightest trace of explosive chemicals. The agent knew I had been cleared by the previous agent, but still showed considerable curiosity about the Inova, asking me to demonstrate it and finally letting me continue on my way.
When boarding was announced the line was split in two, the left line proceeding to the plane, while the right consisted of those randomly selected for searching. The "search line" contained, by my very rough estimate about 30%- 50% of passengers, a much larger proportion than the expected "1 in 5". All "search line" passengers were instructed to remove their shoes and place their bags for a hand search. Then we were each instructed to assume the "crucifixion pose" and were very thoroughly hand-scanned, while our shoes were hand-scanned and manually searched.
At every step of the way the agents/guards had been highly professional, alert and competent. All-in-all an impressive performance bearing almost no resemblance to my first post-9/11 flying experience.
Finally cleared to board, I felt relatively secure for the first time since 9/l1. I give American Airlines and the Miami Airport great credit and I can only hope that these procedures and the future use of even more highly sophisticated technology will eventually become the norm rather than the exception.
Best regards,
Brightnorm
