Let's see….where do I begin. Pilots having to take off their shoes. Passengers having to take off their shoes. Not being allowed to take water on a plane. Not being allowed to take toothpaste on a plane. I could write things like this ALL DAY LONG. And what do people do? They take it! They pass it off as "They say we have to do it to be safe" or "Better safe than sorry." Come on people!
Want another example? How would you like your flight to be diverted, delayed for many hours, held at gunpoint, and questioned? How would you like it if that happened because someone accidentally dropped their IPod in the lav. on the plane?!?!
Don't believe me? Take a look at this eyewitness account of government gone awry.
Here is a teaser:
When the pilot on my Ottawa-bound United flight from Chicago last Tuesday came on the intercom to report a problem, I felt a trickle of panic, even though he assured us that there was no cause for alarm. They had discovered, he said awkwardly, an object on the plane that should not be there. He had notified the authorities at Ottawa airport, and they would handle the problem upon our arrival.
A few nervous minutes later, at around 4 p.m., we landed and taxied to a desolate spot far from the terminal. I and my fellow passengers (close to 50 of us) expected to see emergency vehicles waiting and a crew of people to rush us off the plane before this "object" exploded. No such luck. We were greeted by an eerie silence, a silence that lasted almost 40 minutes until a bus finally pulled up near our plane.
Perplexed and confused, we were ordered to disembark and told that we could bring nothing with us, not even our passports. (Apparently this order was a mistake because we were expected later to have our identifying documents with us.) Grim-faced police officers with guns stared at us with accusing glances as we staggered down the steps. I felt the impulse to put my hands up. What had we done wrong? Were we suspected of terrorism?
We were transported to a large garage, filled with armed police, on the airport complex and told that we had a long wait ahead of us. This turned out to be true. It would be four hours from our arrival at Ottawa before we were finally released.
Meanwhile, the word had gotten out. The "object" that had caused all this panic was an iPod that slipped off the belt of a young man (who looked to be about 18) when he was using the bathroom. It landed in the toilet. Knowing that his iPod was ruined and apparently reluctant to put his hands in the toilet, the young man tried unsuccessfully to flush it away and returned to his seat. When another passenger saw the iPod and mentioned it to the flight attendant, she immediately told the captain, who then notified Ottawa airport authorities.
Once the young man realized that his unflushed iPod was causing such concern he went up to the attendant and told her what had happened. But it was too late. The call to Ottawa airport had set a process in motion that could not be stopped. The Ottawa police, who were in charge of Operation iPod, had a protocol to follow and they were not to be deterred.