IN the wake of the many terrorism attacks, especially the Brussels airport bombing, I was appalled by what seemed to me like a serious lapse in security at Langkawi airport at 2.15pm last Monday (March 21).
My wife and I were going through security in the domestic departure area when we observed a couple in Middle-Eastern garb with a baby pram going through a security gate.
The pram, a double-seater, was apparently too wide to pass through the metal detector gate.
We were shocked to see that instead of having the child/children taken out and having the pram folded and put through the X-ray scanner, the airport security personnel removed a side barrier and allowed the pram and its occupant/s to be passed through without undergoing any security check.
Chalk it down to watching too many movies about terrorists, but it immediately crossed our minds that explosives could have been hidden in the pram, and my wife and I sat through the flight in prayer hoping that there would be no hijacking or explosion.
Terrorists have also been reported to have hidden explosives in their shoes when hijacking airplanes. As such the possibility of explosives being hidden in a pram should never be discounted.
Has this possibility never crossed the minds of our airport security personnel?
As I recall from newspaper reports, even dead babies have been used by drug traffickers to smuggle drugs through the border.
I hope the Department of Civil Aviation can explain if the way their security personnel handled the issue with the pram last Monday was per their standard operating procedures vis-a-vis checking people before they board flights. To my simple mind, that appeared to be a serious lapse in security which could have resulted in terrorists having the means to hijack a plane, or worse to blow it up, had that been their intention.
If this was indeed a breach of SOP, then I hope the DCA will take action to ensure this does not recur because what we saw caused us anxiety and robbed us of our peace of mind during the flight.
Frequent Traveller
My wife and I were going through security in the domestic departure area when we observed a couple in Middle-Eastern garb with a baby pram going through a security gate.
The pram, a double-seater, was apparently too wide to pass through the metal detector gate.
We were shocked to see that instead of having the child/children taken out and having the pram folded and put through the X-ray scanner, the airport security personnel removed a side barrier and allowed the pram and its occupant/s to be passed through without undergoing any security check.
Chalk it down to watching too many movies about terrorists, but it immediately crossed our minds that explosives could have been hidden in the pram, and my wife and I sat through the flight in prayer hoping that there would be no hijacking or explosion.
Terrorists have also been reported to have hidden explosives in their shoes when hijacking airplanes. As such the possibility of explosives being hidden in a pram should never be discounted.
Has this possibility never crossed the minds of our airport security personnel?
As I recall from newspaper reports, even dead babies have been used by drug traffickers to smuggle drugs through the border.
I hope the Department of Civil Aviation can explain if the way their security personnel handled the issue with the pram last Monday was per their standard operating procedures vis-a-vis checking people before they board flights. To my simple mind, that appeared to be a serious lapse in security which could have resulted in terrorists having the means to hijack a plane, or worse to blow it up, had that been their intention.
If this was indeed a breach of SOP, then I hope the DCA will take action to ensure this does not recur because what we saw caused us anxiety and robbed us of our peace of mind during the flight.
Frequent Traveller