Is it really true "The Wand" has been replaced by hands-on searches???

[Frank N. O.]

I just read in a newslink from the danish pilot forum that workers at Copenhagen Airport has to be thoroughly and almost intimately searched everytime they go to work since the wand has been scrapped. They said they're just following practice from other european airports due to safety concerns. An anonymous worker asked: When do we have to take off all our clothes to go to work? It's not nice being touched roughly by securiy people near intimate places just to go to work.

If I need to be touched roughly almost all over my body by strangers in airports to be able to visit North America or Australia, or to get a CPL and to work as a pilot then I quit those dreams permanently! I wouldn't be able to handle that, it's as simple as that.

Frank

[RagDragger]

I've been saying this for years:  Sooner or later, the next Mohammed Whatsis is going to try to get on a jetliner with a butt bomb and THEN what are we gonna do??  Make everyone fly naked and sedated after a full cavity search? Dunno about the hand search thing but it wouldn't surprise me.  Sorry for the rant, but our ever-eroding freedom is one of my pet peeves.   

[airtac]

I just read in a newslink from the danish pilot forum that workers at Copenhagen Airport has to be thoroughly and almost intimately searched everytime they go to work since the wand has been scrapped. They said they're just following practice from other european airports due to safety concerns. An anonymous worker asked: When do we have to take off all our clothes to go to work? It's not nice being touched roughly by securiy people near intimate places just to go to work.

If I need to be touched roughly almost all over my body by strangers in airports to be able to visit North America or Australia, or to get a CPL and to work as a pilot then I quit those dreams permanently! I wouldn't be able to handle that, it's as simple as that.

Frank

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours"----'The Reluctant Messiah' -- Richard Bach

C'mon Frank---it is'nt that bad, as a tall blond WASP American senior citizen, I've been profiled often ( to prove they don't profile  ) for hand searches---I don't believe security people enjoy the process either but it does give me some peace of mind knowing someone is at least trying at some level to protect me from being blown out of the sky.........

[Frank N. O.]

Well I agree that while nothing is perfect then one should try to do the best possible, but the description I've heard on experiences from workers are EKCH and from a pilot returning to Denmark via Frankfurt who was searched and held back after complaining that several people were moved ahead in the line by the ariline, and had 5 armed people behind me as he tried to catch his laptop from being pushed off the table by a security officer then it sounds extreme what's going on, and I know my limits. I did also read, in the same connections that such events vary greatly from place to place so it might be everywhere and all the time (for passengers that is, the worker's check at Copenhagen is now permanent).

Speaking of security then in the same thread as the pilot that travelled via Frankfurt then someone said they'd seen a person from Poland that got a six-pack of bear thrue the safety-check just because he had a reciept from the airport-store, despite the cans being non-transparent and over the 0.1L requirement, and the guy's comments to that was: how easy is it to refill and close beercans and make a fake reciept? I agree with that, at least without knowing more then that seems illogical when even church-people with holywater had to transfer the water to small bags since the viles were too big.

I had heard they'd developed a low-power x-ray system that didn't go thrue the skin but could show knives and guns (even if not of metal) and such. Of course what it would cost is hard to tell.

Maybe it would be easier to use smaller airports in terms of long lines and giant crowds, that's how Odense Airport right behind me is starting to do well, that and starting helicopter training also with a simulator, it's being used by charter-planes and business-jets directly to other places in Europe instead of using the big Billund or Copenhagen Airports.

The thing is that while sitting here I got few chances to find out how the real world is, but just jumping into it unprepared is also a bad idea. Thanks for the calm replies, nice to hear from you again Jim btw, hope things are still blue side up 

Frank

[PiperGirl]

I was hand serched (as a passenger) on a commercial flight recently. I had a tinsy bit of metal on my hair clip, and instead of letting me take it out and put it through the x-ray they had to have a big to-do. The security officers were very rude and had it been anywhere else except a security post it would have been harrassment, and were very invasive of intement areas. I know it's got to be uncomfortable for the security officers and they are doing what they are paid to do. However...I agree with ragdragger

Sorry for the rant, but our ever-eroding freedom is one of my pet peeves.   

In a sense, the terrorist mentality is controlling our lives more and more. We have given up so many freedoms in the name of security. And to be honest, I really don't think that we are any more secure. More regulated maybe, but not any safer. There's my two cents....

[cj5_pilot]

Tundra flies commercially a LOT more then I do (I last went through an airport security check in 1999--only flown commercially on Frontier since then) and has noted that he gets pulled for a "random" check every time.  Not for a full out "Strip you naked and do strange things to your body" kind of search, but a more intense search then walking through the Xray machine.  He has also told me that many other pilots he knows reports the same thing.  Makes you wonder--do they flag the names of Pilots?

[Rooster Cruiser]

In the USA, if you fly commercial on a one-way ticket (especially if it was recently purchased), you are guarenteed to get what I call the "Rubber Glove Treatment".  This is the sort of profiling TSA does; Stupid Profiling.  They figure if you are stupid enough (in their simplified view of the world) to purchase a super-expensive one way ticket, you must be a Terror-Rat intent on smuggling a bomb aboard in your sphincter.  Nevermind the reality that many people have legitimate reasons to fly one-way (to pick up an airplane from a shop, or to return home after delivering a new truck to a dealer are two examples off the top of my head).  Nevermind that today's Terror-Rat is cunning enough to realize that he'll need to travel on a round-trip ticket the next time so he can avoid scrutiny.  The rules have been made, and they cannot be changed!

Typical of our bureaucracy to weed out any and all vestiges of intelligence or common sense.  I wonder something:  Was it the fact that they made such stupid rules the reason they have these idiots working the security duty at TSA, or was it that they made the rules after they found out how many idiots they had just hired, knowing they had to keep it stupid for them to understand?   

[TheSoccerMom]

......workers at Copenhagen Airport have to be thoroughly and almost intimately searched everytime they go to work....

Gosh, most of the pilots I know would PAY to go over there and stand in line....  er...  uhm....   

[airtac]

......workers at Copenhagen Airport have to be thoroughly and almost intimately searched everytime they go to work....

Gosh, most of the pilots I know would PAY to go over there and stand in line....  er...  uhm....   

Yes of course because most of the pilots you know are uh--well--------------------never mind, as a friend, I should have seen this coming

[TheSoccerMom]

Heh heh..  my point EXACTLY!