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WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Why Airport Security Is Rubbish

by Trevor Ward
9 December 2010 11 Comments

Airports: they'll ban your razors and deodorants so you're all hairy with a right funk on, but they'll happily let you aboard the plane with all the deadly weapons you like, providing you've bought them from duty free.

On Friday 6th October, I boarded a scheduled flight with an item as potentially deadly as the box-cutters used by the 9/11 hijackers. It was a jagged, razor-sharp, broken bottleneck. To get it on to the plane, I didn’t have to smuggle anything through the X-ray machines or metal detectors, nor did I contravene the current heightened level of security at UK airports which bans passengers from taking liquids airside with them. I simply exploited a feature of airports which is as common as the planes on the runway – the Duty Free Shop.

By checking in early for Flight EZY18 from Edinburgh to London Luton, I was able to obtain a boarding pass with “security number” 8 which allowed me to choose a seat at the front of the plane. It would have been easy for me to charge forward any time the cockpit door was opened. The rest doesn’t bear thinking about. My “weapon” cost £5.99 from the Duty Free – a bottle of Lindemanns Cabernet Sauvignon.

Having bought the bottle, I headed for a toilet cubicle where I set about transforming it into something far more potentially lethal than the cans of Coke, shaving gels and other substances which have been routinely confiscated from passengers at UK airports since August. First, I pushed down the cork, using a car key and my little finger, until I was able to empty the contents of the bottle down the toilet.

Next, I wrapped the empty bottle in a towel from my hand-luggage and placed it back in the plastic carrier bag I had been given at Duty Free. I smashed the bottle against the toilet bowl. The sound was successfully muffled by the towel, the toilet flush and a PA announcement.

“It would have been easy for me to charge forward any time the cockpit door was opened. The rest doesn’t bear thinking about. My “weapon” cost £5.99 from the Duty Free – a bottle of Lindemanns Cabernet Sauvignon.”

From the carrier bag I retrieved several shards of glass and the jagged bottleneck. I decided the razor-sharp bottleneck would make the most effective weapon. I wrapped this in my towel and put it in my hand-luggage. I left the remains of the smashed bottle in the carrier bag and deposited it in a litter bin outside the toilet. There were no remains of my actions left within the toilet cubicle.

I now had in my possession a deadly weapon, and hadn’t had to smuggle anything through airport security. If three or four like-minded characters had bought a bottle of wine each from Duty-Free, it would have been easy for them to hi-jack a plane. There were flights to New York and other international destinations at gates either side of my flight to London.

I boarded my flight unchallenged and took my seat just a few rows from the cockpit.

The solution to a security loophole like this would appear to be quite simple – to ban the sale of all bottled drinks within airports, or sell only plastic bottles. But that will never happen, because the priority of the British Airports Authority – which runs London’s and Scotland’s main airports – is profiteering from, not protecting, its customers (See Airport Security – The Great Consumer Rip-Off here).

BAA makes a huge percentage of its profits from the rent it charges shops to operate within its airports. And that’s why travelling by air these days isn’t just uncomfortable and unpleasant - like flying from one shopping centre to another - but has just got much more dangerous. I have emailed this story to BAA, and as soon as I get a response will add it to this post (after a week, BAA still hadn’t bothered replying).

You may be interested to learn I also sent copies of this story to all the national newspapers of England and Scotland. Not one of them chose to report it. Obviously the lack of celebrity involvement outweighed the public safety angle. So for all those news editors who wouldn’t recognise a good tale if it burst into their bedrooms wearing a niqab, carrying the latest seismograph print-outs from North Korea and shouting ‘Jose Mourinho’s fucking mad!’

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image descriptionCOMMENTS

biff bifferson 4:57 pm, 9-Dec-2010

NONE of the nationals took it? i'd have thought it was right up their street. 'now' and those type of mags would be all over it, surely?

Keith Wildman 5:12 pm, 9-Dec-2010

This really is pretty shocking. I mean, Cabernet Sauvignon? I'd have gone for a nice Malbec.

Goatboy 6:11 pm, 9-Dec-2010

I still can't grasp why the razor blades I buy at Tescos (and can't carry in my hand luggage) are in any way more dangerous than the ones available for sale in Stansted Airport's branch of Boots. Take down the shadowy airtravel/retail complex Ward!!

Jonesy 10:03 am, 10-Dec-2010

If you'd smeared it in shit it could have had added "Nam bungee spike" danger...

Juzzy Jenkins 12:36 pm, 10-Dec-2010

You nutter.

jeane 1:46 pm, 16-Dec-2010

Sorry, having a "thick" moment. You type "(See Airport Security – The Great Consumer Rip-Off here)". Where?!? Apologies.

Trevor Ward 2:32 pm, 16-Dec-2010

Jeane, it's not you, it's me. There was originally a link to an old blog I used to write(which is now largely out of date). If still interested, here's the link: http://world-of-crap.blogspot.com/2006/08/airport-security-great-consumer-rip.html

jeane 4:43 pm, 16-Dec-2010

Great! Thanks for the speedy response. It's certainly is an interesting read. Cheers.

Alan B 8:00 pm, 28-Feb-2011

there was hijackers on 9/11? .... looks more like an inside job to me

Ermes 11:49 am, 6-Nov-2011

I think the point is that things you bring from outside the airport could have been tampered with or modified. Things you buy in the duty-free have been screened and are considered safe to be boarded. For what concerns the bottle-neck 'weapon', it does not constitute a lethal weapon as such, since it cannot perforate, but only cut. As such plain-clothes security personell flying with the rest of the passengers would be capable enough to disarm the wanna-be terrorist.

Mr Controversial 9:20 pm, 17-Dec-2011

I cant believe you didn't drink the wine.

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