I do tons of flying compared to most people. The last few years haven’t been as busy as normal, but for a while there I was getting on a plane on average of about once a month to go somewhere with work. I chronicled some of my trips over the last few years here.
One of the things I’ve always sort of snickered about on planes is the need to still blatantly point out that smoking is not allowed on a plane. I always thought it was fairly self-evident that one shouldn’t light anything while sitting on top of several thousand pounds of kerosene, but apparently I was wrong. It turns out some idiot on a Jet Blue flight thought he would sneak in a few drags in the bathroom last night. When the guy’s family found out they decided to smack their brother around a bit, and ended up causing a fist fight on the plane. The plane then had to divert and land due to the disturbance.
Of course, smoking on a plane is a felony, so that guy is in a ton of trouble. It will be interesting to see what happens now, as I haven’t heard of anything like this before.
My question is, how did this guy light his cigarette? I’m confident they don’t allow matches or lighters on airplanes…he probably couldn’t have even brought flint on board if he was so inclined. And if he could manage to sneak on board two sticks and then rub them together fast enough to get a spark (he would have to be Macgyver of course to do that on an airplane going god knows how fast at god knows what altitude…not to mention in those tiny tiny bathrooms) …that’s rather desperate for a cigarette. Maybe it’s a good thing this guy got arrested…
Well matches don’t contain metal so I doubt they would ever find them.
That’s disappointing. They would have to be really well hidden…I went to the courthouse the other day and they searched me and my purse and took my hand sanitizer. Apparently it was flammable. Dangerous stuff.
Actually, if you left a packet of paper matches (or ones without metal in them) in your pocket rather than putting them in the plastic buckets that pass by the security guards, they wouldn’t find them unless they did a search.
Still a stupid thing to do, but people do still try. I thought my husband was going to make an attempt on our way to Mexico… with delays and transfers and more delays he was 14 hours without a cigarette and lets just say he was much worse than the flight attendant on the Nicorette commercials.
Yah, I’ve never once been hand-searched going through security. So unless I purposefully put it in the plastic bins, it made it on the plane with me. You still have to go through a metal detector, but many things, like matches, don’t contain metal, and wouldn’t set it off.
See I seem to have bad luck with security. I always get ‘randomly selected’ to be hand pat down. I have no idea why. I personally think they have something against redheads.
There have been recent smoking incidents. Air Canada had a passenger try to light up recently. Air Canada is really sensitive to this, they were the first airline in the world to ban smoking fleet-wide. Sadly, this is in part due to the fact that they lost an aircraft (DC9) and several people were killed when a fire broke out due to smoking on board around 1982 if I recall correctly.
Perhaps if folks realized how dangerous it was, they wouldn’t be inclined to try. A fire on an aircraft is a very serious and deadly problem. Oh well, I think the FAA and courts will likely fine the person rather heavily.
@ Duane : Whoops, I forgot to mention. Matches will trigger the GC analyzer and show up as combustibles when they sweep for explosives. Not a good plan to sneak in the carry-on.
I thought I remembered that matches are actually okay. I think it’s a leftover from the ever-powerful tobacco lobby, who prefer people to be able to light up right away after coming off a flight.
A quick search points to a Transportation Security Authority site which states:
“[…]One book of safety (non-strike anywhere) matches are permitted as carry-on items, but all matches are prohibited in checked baggage.”
http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm