MIT student arrested at Boston airport for wearing fake bomb

Parents Forum
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<p>you have to start looking beyond the flash of what we see at the airport, which is fine and dandy, and concern yourselves with the real daily dangers we fly under because of decisions made by the administration, the industry, etc</p>

<p>if you feel oh so much safer because this girl was arrested and conitinue to stick your heads in the sand regarding all the other REAL safety issues regarding air travel, your choice</p>

<p>thank goodness some people are taking it more seriously</p>

<p>just to give you a feel of what is going on</p>

<p>n late August there were five air traffic control errors at the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center, the planet’s busiest ATC facility. So says NATCA, the air traffic controllers’ union.</p>

<p>NATCA contends that six-day work weeks and ten-hour days have become increasingly common for Atlanta Center controllers. “We’re stretched thin, stressed out, overworked and unhappy,” contends Calvin Phillips, NATCA’s facility representative at Atlanta Center. “Those of us who can retire are doing so at the earliest possible minute, and those of us who can’t are counting down the minutes until we can.”</p>

<p>NATCA says Atlanta Center’s operational errors took place between August 27 and 31. An operational error happens when two aircraft come closer than Federal Aviation Administration minimum separation rules allow.</p>

<p>In one case cited by NATCA, a recently certified air traffic controller operating a busy high-altitude sector that feeds Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) was working ATL-bound aircraft in a holding pattern over Rome, Georgia, a small city northwest of Atlanta. The controller, says NATCA, “descended the wrong aircraft”. That airliner descended through an area of several other airplanes that were holding lower in the pattern.</p>

<p>NACTA says Atlanta Center was authorized to have 444 controllers on staff in 2006, before the imposition (by the FAA) of pay cuts and changes in work rules. In March, the union says the agency slashed that authorized level by 30 percent. Today, NATCA says Atlanta has 314 fully certified controllers, but because some of them are medically restricted, the union says there are actually 294 experienced controllers performing the work.</p>

<p>In the meantime, air traffic is climbing.</p>

<p>As this story is published, the House of Representatives voted 267-151 to send NATCA and FAA back to the negotiating table to finish work on a contract. NATCA is hoping a new FAA Reauthorization bill help bring the union and the government together, so a new pact can be ratified.</p>

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<p>By Alan Levin, USA TODAY
A controversial air traffic procedure has nearly caused midair collisions during takeoffs and landings around the nation and brought a stern warning from U.S. safety investigators, who this month ordered the practice halted at Memphis International Airport, according to federal records, controllers and pilots.
Passenger jets arriving at Memphis and several other airports routinely fly directly over the top of planes landing on another nearby runway. Earlier this year, a midair collision between a Northwest Airlines DC-9 and a commuter plane was narrowly averted in Memphis, according to a report on the incident.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-12-runway-close-calls_N.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-12-runway-close-calls_N.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>By KATIE FAIRBANK / The Dallas Morning News
<a href="mailto:kfairbank@dallasnews.com">kfairbank@dallasnews.com</a>
Air traffic controllers who watch over North Texas skies are repeatedly allowing airplanes to fly into situations that could result in a crash – and upper management is systematically shifting the blame to the pilots involved, according to an investigative federal agency.</p>

<p>TOM FOX/DMN
Anne Whiteman, now an air traffic control supervisor, spurred an earlier investigation when she reported that air traffic control managers covered up close calls. 'Nothing has changed,' she says. 'They just manipulated how they hide things.'
The Office of Special Counsel, an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency that enforces laws protecting government whistle-blowers, is ordering a special investigation into the operation and management of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport's air traffic control system, which also oversees the air traffic into Dallas Love Field. The investigation may be widened to a national scope.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/airlines/stories/DN-whistleblower_12ent.ART.North.Edition1.4427346.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/airlines/stories/DN-whistleblower_12ent.ART.North.Edition1.4427346.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p><a href="http://www.enlighted.com/pages/gallery.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.enlighted.com/pages/gallery.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>guess can't wear any of those things
and the girl wore the shirt alot around campus, with no issues</p>

<p><a href="http://www.neontrim.com/clothes.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.neontrim.com/clothes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rls=en&q=led+shirts&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rls=en&q=led+shirts&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>this is a new fashion and secruity is going to have to learn the difference between a light up shirt and a bomb</p>

<p>seriously people, get a grip</p>

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<p>Perhaps what the terror group that paid her was trying to find out was how those in charge of security would react.</p>

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<p>yes, she is a mole.....she wore that tacky shirt for months and months, all over campus and such...with no one caring at all, then she thinks nothing of it and goes to the airport...all as a ruse </p>

<p>clever clever clever</p>

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<br>


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<p>Homer and Jessica?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Perhaps what the terror group that paid her was trying to find out was how those in charge of security would react.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Wow. This is an amazing statement. Other then TV and movie plots, what do you base this on?</p>

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<p>What I find really amazing, cgm, is that you started a thread asking how people could not be "street smart", ridiculing those who are uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations, and yet here you are defending this girl. </p>

<p>How can someone intelligent not be "street smart"? I give you Exhibit A: Star Simpson.</p>

<p>And by the way, yes there are totally stupid airport security rules, like those dealing with tweezers and cuticle scissors, and some that are not. Like stopping people wearing blinking lights who refuse to respond to questions about it. One, frankly, has nothing to do with the other.</p>

<p>And airport security also has nothing to do with aircraft maintenance or air traffic controllers. Different issues. If you think for a moment that taking money away from airport security will put it into air traffic controllers, then you need a serious reality check. The money will just go elsewhere.</p>

<p>Yes, we need air traffic controllers. Yes, we need good aircraft and aircraft maintenance. And, contrary to your assertions, we also need airport (and train and port) security.</p>

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<p>If she had been going to the airport to take a flight I would be far more critical of her. Going to the airport to pick up her boyfriend, I can see not even thinking that her artsy circuitboard sweatshirt could be seen as a threat. Did anyone stop her on the MIT campus and scream, "Oh my god, she's wearing a bomb!" ? What was she thinking? answer: she wasn't thinking. That doesn't make her a bad person. Doesn't even make her a stupid person. </p>

<p>I had airport security fish a pocket knife out of my carryon bag once. A knife that i forgot was in the bag. </p>

<p>Back during the 1974 energy crisis I took my Iranian roommate from Detroit MI over to Windsor Canada so he could see the Christmas lights. oops!! No papers, we got turned around on the Canadian side and then almost were not let back in on the US side! Lucky we're still not stuck on that bridge today. Kids do stupid things!</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102347.html?hpid=topnews%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102347.html?hpid=topnews&lt;/a>
he U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.</p>

<p>The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.</p>

<p>But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.</p>

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<p>and chedva, of course we need both, BUT we don'tt have both anymore...we are losing inspections, air safty etc....</p>

<p>and OF COURSE they are related...if you have gee, some doing maintenenace who has not been checked out, who could be ANYONE, gee, that isn't connected to airport secruity?</p>

<p>AIR SAFETY is air safety- whetherit is a bolt that breaks (as is happening on several planes lately) or a shoe bomber, the plane can go down</p>

<p>whether it is a tired air traffic controller following bad rules set for by the feds that have caused many near misses, or it is a terrorist, the plane can crash, and the near misses are happening more often than anyone knows because it isn't reported to the public unless you look for it</p>

<p>safety and secuirty isn't JUST about shoes and hairspray, it is about safe planes and safe air space in ALL ITS FORMS</p>

<p>we are so caught up in those lines at the airport, and think, well, gee I am safe now, when some very scary and dangerous stuff is happening to that very same plane</p>

<p>they are spending more time checking on what you carry on a plane that has no dangerous aspects at all, then they are checking on the maintenance personal doing the work in foriegn countries</p>

<p>and they are logging in how you talk to the ticket agent, but don't even certify many of the mechanics in 3rd world countries</p>

<p>Cost-squeezed airlines are increasingly farming out more and more aircraft maintenance to independent contractors -- many of them in foreign countries -- that are not FAA-certified.</p>

<p>from Consumer afffairs
The practice has already been blamed for one fatal accident -- the January 2003 crash of a US Airways flight in Charlotte, N.C. Investigators said the non-certified mechanics who worked on the plane the day before the crash incorrectly adjusted a flight-control device that contributed to the accident, which killed all 21 people on board.
It is the airlines' responsibility to oversee the work being done by the contractors but the report says that the level of scrutiny is not high enough to ensure that all work is up to FAA standards.</p>

<p>The report warns that non-certified facilities are "performing more significant work than anyone realized."</p>

<p>The Inspector General's office studied six U.S. airlines, which are not named in the report. It found that none were providing an adequate level of training. One airline provided 11 hours of classroom and video training while another simply provided a one-hour video. One airline simply mailed a workbook to each shop and required mechanics to sign a form saying they had read it.</p>

<p>JetBlue, Southwest, America West, Northwest and United are among the carriers who outsource major maintenance of their aircraft to contractors in other countries, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier.</p>

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<p>CGM: Next time you buy a bong, pay cash.</p>

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<p>There have been several attacks on airports themselves. It was in the last year. Sheeesh.</p>

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<p>StickerShock -- trying to PM you, but your inbox is full...</p>

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<p>and stickershock, that the best you got? insult me and ignore the facts- typical</p>

<p>Yep, scary stuff, that shirt when you see this:</p>

<p>Radar fails in Memphis; hundreds of flights affected
Story Highlights
FAA lost phone, radar service; serviced restored at 3 p.m. ET Tuesday
Air controllers could not communicate to hand off control of flights, FAA said
"Significant delays" at Dallas-Fort Worth; Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina
FedEx, based in Memphis, diverted its aircraft to other cities, spokesman said
Next Article in U.S. »</p>

<p>ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Air traffic controllers were forced to use their personal cell phones to reroute hundreds of flights Tuesday after the Federal Aviation Administration's Memphis Center lost radar and telephone service for more than two hours, snarling air traffic in the middle of the nation.</p>

<p>The FAA's Memphis Center lost communication service Tuesday, affecting FedEx flights and others.</p>

<p>A spokesman for FedEx, which has its hub in Memphis, Tennessee, said the package delivery company had diverted 11 aircraft to other cities. But most of its flights take off and land after 10 p.m., so FedEx expected the impact to be minimal, the spokesman said.</p>

<p>Air traffic was halted at 12:35 p.m. ET when a major communication line that feeds all the telephones at the FAA's Memphis Center failed, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.</p>

<p>Service was restored at 3 p.m.</p>

<p>The malfunction, which occurred inside a telephone company's switching office, made it impossible for air controllers at FAA's Memphis Center to communicate normally with adjoining centers to hand off control of flights, Bergen said.</p>

<p>In addition, three of nine long-range radar systems were lost, causing the FAA to temporarily ground traffic within a 250-mile radius of the center, affecting flights in seven states, Bergen said.</p>

<p>Adjacent centers in Atlanta, Georgia; Indianapolis, Indiana; Kansas City, Missouri; and Fort Worth, Texas; were pitching in to try to reroute planes, she said.</p>

<p>There was no indication the failure was deliberate, she said.</p>

<p>Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, called the failure "a major safety problem."</p>

<p>At the time of the outage, controllers "were thrust into an immensely chaotic situation in which they had to use personal cell phones to talk to other air traffic control facilities about specific flights that they could not communicate with themselves," he said.</p>

<p>"Significant delays" resulted at airports in the middle of the country, including Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, he said.</p>

<p>Memphis Center's airspace includes 100,000 square miles of airspace, covering Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and parts of Alabama and Kentucky.</p>

<p>Church predicted that flight operations in the affected area "are not going to be 'normal' for quite some time."</p>

<p>A spokesman for Northwest Airlines said the impact on the airline was "pretty minor," with 13 flights canceled and 19 others diverted out of 740 scheduled flights for the day.</p>

<p>A spokeswoman for Delta Air Lines said it canceled six flights and rerou</p>

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<p>We are all victims of technology from time to time. Phones go out, cable goes out--no system is foolproof. They are upgrading the air traffic control system to a GPS based system but it is a huge undertaking.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14045408%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14045408&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>um, don't you find it odd that they had to resort to PERSONAL celphones, that there was no back up system or even plan? I would think that the airport control system would have a backup system, </p>

<p>guess you think that is good enough for us!!!</p>

<p>huge undertaking, sure, but if we are cutting back on staff, etc., we doing a pretty bad job</p>

<p>but to some mediocre for America is okay, we don't need to be the best anymore</p>