Joe, I am totally for increased "smart" security. But there will always be a way for people to outsmart the security at the airports. The idea is to filter as much of attackers while they are on the ground. The latest report I read about this crook was the fact that he was questioned heavily by the French authorities the day before. So, from now on if they get suspicious of someone and they question him/her heavily then maybe they will scan EVERYTHING that's on him/her. That small measure would have prevented this incident. That's a cheaper solution than reconfiguring the entire screening and buying all that equipment. Of course, if you bought some hi tech stocks with the TWA ones that you dumped , that's beyond me :) Cheers, BAHA Fan of $490 that state of WA pays me to sit down on my derriere and surf through the a.net :) -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of www.joepries.com Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 6:00 AM To: AIRLINE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU Subject: Re: If you want to down a plane .... hi Geoff, youre 100% right- but- if you put a passenger through a body scanner- one that shows a 3d view of the person and every single inch of him/her is visible- you just eliminated this problem- alot of people (women especially) will have a problem with this but they'll just have to do it- one way is to have the person monitoring in a booth where the pax doesnt see him/her so theres less embarassment- but this will work. then you have the problem of rogue caterers or others who have access to airplanes that can slip something in to the airplane so yeah- you cant stop em all but with the scanner you can do alot- and scan the caterers/cleaners while youre at it for more complete sterility. Unfortunately we've come to this stage- actually we should have come to it long ago. talkafrica <talkafrica@zol.co.zw> wrote: Sadly, we have to realise that if a fanatic really wants to bring down a plane, there's not a lot that we can do. With modern explosives, you could hide enought in a small torpedo-shaped vial to do real damage. And the passenger could insert that vial in a body cavity (at least one springs to mind) and remove it in flight. That's not to say it's not important to have tight security -- but let's not kid ourselves that we'll ever be out of danger. Geoff in Harare Joe Pries Commercial Aviation Photography Serving the airline industry with quality photography AOL IM AIRLINE72 http://www.joepries.com --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online at Yahoo! Greetings.