“Don’t they know who I am?!”
Yes, and they’re as impressed as we are.
Apparently the Russians are as incompetent as we when it comes to airport security.
Russia apologized Monday for keeping two U.S. senators waiting for three hours in a Russian airport after border guards expressed concerns about letting the U.S. military flight depart without an inspection of the plane.
Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Barack Obama, D-Ill., arrived in the Ukrainian capital later than expected after the delay in Russia’s Ural Mountains city of Perm on Sunday night.
“We are not certain as to why or (what was) the particular activity that caused that delay,” Lugar said. “We are pleased that our flight was able to continue to Kiev, albeit three hours later. … We still had a good night’s sleep.”
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, defended the delay, saying it was because the Perm airport isn’t part of an Open Skies Agreement, which allows certain planes to bypass inspections, Russia’s RIA Novosti and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported.
Somehow we conveniently forget that we have delayed our own representatives at our own airports. Example: [Ted Kennedy / John Lewis ]
Of course, conspiracy theories crop up about why Lugar and Obama were “detained,” but the simplest explanation is that Russia’s airport security is as screwed up as our own.
The real reason. They were travelling on a US military aircraft, and the people at the airport weren’t sure what the protocol was for allowing a foreign military aircraft just leave after it had landed there. So they had to get permission from higher-ups to let the aircraft depart.
I really had no problems with them keeping them. I always thought we had too many Senators anyway. Their weight in caviar would have been fair payment. Off topic, even though Steve Jobs demanded that Safari be bought in compliant with your Blog, the new 2.0.1 patch fails. A few H1-B’s will be revoked today for this failure.
I am concerned that Obama is keeping company with the likes of Lugar. He could learn a lot more from a fellow Democrats.
If you think US airports are bad now, then you’ll be in for a surprise when you try the russian ones. They have always been incredibly slow and the officials tend to abuse their power way more than here in the US. I think this is nothing out of the ordinary. It just happened to public figures this time instead of some unknown tourists.
I guess the Russians were surprised that an American military aircraft had landed there rather than the usual Bush system of flying over and shocking and aweing them
They knew the protocol for a military aircraft, which is that they are not searched. They were demanding proof that this was a military aircraft, and not accepting the proof they were shown. The new KGB just isn’t as good as when Putin was around.