World’s Pilots Reject Naked Body Scanners Over Radiation Danger

[Flashermac]

Sounds like technology has made things tougher. My dad told me he and one of his friends swapped badges for a few days and no one even noticed it. The security guards knew the engineers anyway, recognised them on sight.

 

I had a UN badge years ago when I worked there part time. All the guards ever did was glance at my badge to see that I had one. A buddy there told me they'd let you in with almost any badge on your chest.

 

 

[Nervous God]

In Bangkok I, err, know off someone, who works in IT, a Farang, who can still meet people as they exit the plane. All because of a few favours long ago. Then no queuing etc for the people he meets.

[TroyinEwa/Perv]

I have a friend who's done the same. I heard he paid the security guy 200 baht and he was let in. Different world there and just about zero consequence to offender or the guy who let him offend.

[Old Hippie]

The scanning of airline pilots and airline personnel is a joke. I have a ramp badge, have access to planes all day long...yet I want to fly on the same plane I just worked on, and I am treated like a criminal and scanned etc...it is a joke...

 

Hip, what's it like in US, do you guys (maintenance staff etc) get scanned before work? Reason I ask is down here they never used to and this was bought to light during the Chappelle Corby case, and changed now as far as I know (someone will correct me if I'm wrong I'm sure). It did cause a major debate on the topic. I'm guessing a ramp badge is some kind of police check/security clearance type of thing?

 

I remember as a lad going to work at the airport with my dad he was never scanned (ATC) nor was anyone else who worked on the secure side, other than retailers.

 

As for the new scanners - if they are bad for you or not, surely a doctor would be the one to make an accurate call, and if there was any risk (not just to airline staff but for all) they could go back to the old way or find a better/safer system.

The xrays we use at work detect everything - metal, organics, explosives, even mobile phones... and there's an ion machine which blows air at people and "smells" the air for similar as well as drugs... the only metal detection we use is a walk throgh detector and hand wands.. and the staff walk through it everyday, even when the Commissioner and MP's visit, they get the same treatment.

 

 

No, I am not scanned or searched when I come to work...I suppose I could be, but it has never happened, other than looking in my lunch bag immediately after 9/11, and being told my steak knife was not allowed on the property...see what I mean by stupid shit? I could basically get anything I want on the property, place it on an airplane, get searched at the check in, board the plane retrieve the weapon and cause havoc...hence the screening is a joke.

 

If a pilot wanted to cause some shit he could just crash the plane into a building...some say that Egyptian pilot was trying to do that a few years back when some plane crashed...a disgruntled Fed Ex pilot also tried it...so why bother searching these pilots?

[Redbaron]

Ramp badge - got it.. makes sense, where I work ramp means an entirely different thing.. i get what you mean regarding the pilots and flight crew but...

 

I could basically get anything I want on the property, place it on an airplane, get searched at the check in, board the plane retrieve the weapon and cause havoc...hence the screening is a joke.

 

... or leave it for an accomplice - that is the reason everyone gets searched in oz (or if they don't that was the arguement behind it). Police/background checks only find things you've been caught for or charged with in the past, if someone wakes up one day and thinks fuck it I'll smuggle a bomb on a plane today - daily searches may find it... We have to do it every day, but our major concern is a bit different to airports.

[Bangkoktraveler]

I was doing some research on the internet recently on the topic of an explosive used in the 1880's. I was surprise there is information on how to make the explosive and even what kind of blasting cap is needed to set the explosion off. Then it went on to say the explosive was used in the Mexican hand grenades used during their revolution and then by the French during WW1 in their hand grenades.

 

Put this info into the right hands and we could start WWIII.

[TheCorinthian]

You should see what they teach us to build.

[Flashermac]

Flight attendants union upset over new pat-down procedures

 

 

PHOENIX - A flight attendants union with 2,000 members is upset over what it calls "invasive pat-downs" recently implemented by the TSA.

 

"We're getting calls daily about peoples' experiences, our members are concerned," said Deborah Volpe, Vice President of the Association of Flight Attendants Local 66.

 

Volpe confirmed that the union is offering advice to its flight attendants, who mostly work for Tempe-based USAirways, involving the security moves.

 

According to a union email obtained by ABC15, it tells flight attendants if they opt out of using the body scanner through security and are required to undergo a pat-down to ask the pat-down be conducted in a private area with a witness.

 

[color:red]"We don't want them in uniform going through this enhanced screening where their private areas are being touched in public," said Volpe. "They actually make contact with the genital area."[/color]

 

Some passengers have told ABC15 they've already encountered flight delays due to crew members having problems with TSA employees.

 

"It (delay) was over three hours when they finally found a crew member to take her place," said Les Johnson who says his Charlotte bound flight was delayed. "She (flight attendant) felt that she was groped and supposedly filed a claim."

 

According to Volpe, complaints from flight attendants are expected to continue to increase and said some flight attendants are planning to file lawsuits.

 

A flight attendant who contacted ABC15, and asked not to be named because they are not authorized to be speak about the issue without union approval, says there have been more complaints from flight attendants filed Wednesday morning.

 

"They've already contacted the ACLU," said Volpe when referring to some members of the union. "We don't know if somebody may have had an experience with a sexual assault and its (pat-down) going to drudge up some bad memories."

 

Volpe made it clear the union is not against security.

 

"Security is the most important aspect, our offices were used as murder weapons," said Volpe. "Keep in mind we undergo extensive background checks and we fly quite often."

 

Volpe said she has been a flight attendant for nearly 25 years and she and other union leaders are pushing for a "crew pass" system that would allow flight attendants and pilots to essentially by-pass security.

 

"We don't want to delay anyone, we just feel this pat-down is a little much."

 

 

 

What's wrong with these farking people? Do they think they have rights or something???

 

 

[Flashermac]

 

sJGvsAgpfig

 

 

 

 

[TroyinEwa/Perv]

I'm 3 minutes into listening to it and not to take away that I'm sure the search sucks, this chick is exaggerating like crazy, imo. She says she's lead away by 12 cops AND 7 TSA officers. 19 people escorting her?? She then says she's being screamed at and even if that's the case, which I don't believe, I'm sure she's perfectly calm, right??

 

Ok....I'm gonna go back and listen to the last 11 minutes now.

 

I stopped listening after she said she was escorted out of the airport but yet she had done nothing wrong. Hard to listen to shit like that.