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Security and its guardians - A phone call is enough...
Some people must have realized years ago just how easily the fear of God can be put into an airport by the simple impediment of a telephone call. If you were a safety official, what would you do if someone were to call at three in the morning, saying that Flight so and so will have a bomb on it? As likely as not, you would order a search of the aircraft, an extra careful check of passengers and luggage and, having turned up nothing suspicious, you would just sit back with your fingers crossed until the threatened plane arrived home safely. But you would never, not once, treat the telephone calls as not being for real. A lot of money and time is being wasted as a result of these telephone nuts, for less than a fraction of one percent of such telephone calls actually have a real threat behind them.
The telephone exchange at this airport had the disconcerting habit of regularly putting through callers to the control center's extension whenever they could not make heads or tails of what the caller wanted. It was only natural that a call starting with the words "bomb" or "explosives" should end up ringing the supervisor's line. Over the years most of the supervisors had the good fortune of talking to these nameless people cheerfully promising to blow up everything from aircraft to radar installations and from the catering kitchen to cars in the parking lot. While they chatted away, technicians desperately tried to trace the call, mostly ending up at a coin-box, long deserted by the time the police arrived.
These conversations with the loonies invariably proved an educating experience. Discounting the obvious drunks and those high as a kite, the rest provided a unique insight into human psychology. Of course these people are not the same breed as those who actually blow up airplanes (these latter usually tend to telephone after the fact...), but they seem to take an unholy glee in the frantic search and near chaos they know their phone call will invariably result in.
Funnily enough some supervisors even managed to get a few of them to confess their motives. There were those who hated airplanes because of the noise they made, there were lonely souls who just wanted to have a good chat (threatening to blow you up by way of introduction is as good a way as any to start a good heart to heart chat...), there were deserted lovers and students who had made a bet. Why these people never called the railways or the boat company, was impossible to know.
Incidentally, the only time a search following such a telephone call ever uncovered anything, they found a small wooden crate, tucked away in a corner of the cargo compartment of the plane indicated by the caller. On opening the crate, safety experts found a dozen kilograms of oranges, which they ate later with gusto...
Error of judgment
In the years since skyjacking had been first invented, people had succeeded in diverting aircraft from their original destinations using an incredible variety of things, some of them quite real weapons, others as innocent as plastic toys. The 9/11 terrorists used paper cutting knives... Of course, skyjackers usually took advantage of the helpless situation of the crew, who had little choice but to believe every claim the skyjacker(s) made. I mean, flying at over thirty thousand feet you are not likely to want to find out if that little bottle really does contain nitroglycerine, as claimed, or only aftershave, as the label says. Such things are not likely to make it on board these days but back than, in the time of these stories, some pilots of some airlines were justifiably jumpy over such things and an error of judgment was not so surprising, as you will see in a moment.
The flight in question originated in Rome, and their day started off rather badly with a bomb-scare following an anonymous telephone call. A search of the plane turned up nothing, neither had the security check of the passengers come up with anything untoward. Several hours late and with the crew only vaguely convinced that there was no bomb ticking away to blow them all into low earth orbit, the plane finally climbed to cruising level, settling down for their five hour hop to destination.
No sooner had the "Fasten Seat Belts" sign been switched off, when two men, properly dressed in business suits but without beards or guns, stood up and asked a passing stewardess if they could visit the cockpit. Obviously they knew nothing about that morning's bomb scare or the fact that this particular airline have always had very strong feelings about strangers being allowed into that mysterious office up front.
The girl's tortured brain immediately made the wrong connection and while she pushed the men back into their seats mumbling something negative, the enormity of the real situation suddenly loomed large in her mind's eye. Of course, it wasn't a bomb scare at all, it was this hijacking they were trying to warn them about all along... Seeing that the "hijackers" were once again safely buckled in (thanks goodness, they must have given up, she thought), she rushed forward and related her story to the captain. In a Hollywood movie this fearless knight would have come into the passenger compartment with a stern expression on his face and, possibly after a short fist fight, would have seen to it that the hijackers were locked up in one of the rear toilettes for the rest of the flight. As it was, however, the crew elected to use a completely pragmatic course of action. They locked the office door and radioed ahead for clearance to land at the next available airport.
By repeated and patient use of the radio, controllers were able to gather the following facts. Here was a flight originally threatened by a bomb, now wishing to land at their airport, following a foiled attempt at hijacking. The hijackers had apparently given up, pretending again to be innocent passengers, but one of the stewardesses would be able to point them out to the authorities after landing, which she would willingly do. That there was something fishy about it all had been patently apparent, but the crew sounded sincere enough and in any case controllers had no choice but to flash a full alert.
In no time at all the airport was sealed off from the world, the isolated parking position was surrounded by armed guards and the special anti-terrorist detail of the police took up positions also. The fire trucks and a number of ambulances were parked prudently a few hundred meters away.
The big jet landed gracefully and following instructions received over the radio, they taxied slowly to their assigned parking area. It had been decided earlier that if the hijackers stick to their game of pretending to be ordinary passengers, they would be allowed to come to the terminal together with the rest, including the arch-witness stew, to be grabbed and neutralized inside the building where their chances of escaping would be considerably slimmer.
Things went exactly according to plan and two airport buses hauled all the passengers safely to the transit lounge. There, armed guards suddenly appeared and following the accusing finger of the stewardess, they dragged the two unresisting but mightily surprised gentlemen away.
As you will have guessed by now, the "hijackers" had turned out to be completely ordinary Italian businessmen who had taken an interest in the cockpit of an aircraft type they have never flown in before. They gracefully accepted the apologies offered by the airline as well as the airport authority, soon to be on their way again, with another five -hour delay added to the original six...
I have experienced some of these stories myself, others were handed down by older colleagues. It was nice being a part of it and it is nice to recreate the memories and share it with you today.
Please visit my blog at http://www.roger-wilco.net You will find many more aviation stories and other interesting items there.
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