The 36-year-old, who has not been named, arrived at the international terminal of Italy’s busiest airport at the end of last month with a backpack and a can of beer in his hand.
The Norwegian was due to check in for a flight to Oslo and when he found no one on duty at the airline desk he leapt across the counter and fell into a deep asleep on the baggage belt with his bag beside him.
As the belt began to move the unsuspecting tourist reportedly travelled for 15 minutes through the secure baggage area in Terminal 3 before officials spotted his body curled up in a foetal position in an X-ray image on their monitors.
He slept through the whole episode and airport police had trouble waking him when they were called to the scene to investigate what had happened…
A senior officer with Fiumicino airport police said…it was not the first kind of incident involving “drunks or people with psychological problems”…”There’s usually an episode like this once a year and we are alert,” the official said. “In this case we were notified we sounded the alarm immediately and we took action…”
Concerned about the tourist’s exposure to the powerful X-rays, police took him to a nearby hospital before reporting him to prosecutors at Civitavecchia for causing alarm at the airport.
Har.
Yep, the security is really alert here!
That’s nothing. One kid walked a few miles to the airport and flew to Rome, without a passport, ticket, or boarding pass.
“Lost Baggage” is a euphemism for open unbridled theft of passenger property in a system that is supposed to be secure.
While “humans” can lapse here and there and is to be expected, its the lapses of all the expensive automated equipment that troubles me. Not so much that there are gaps and errors, but that so much money is spent on a system with those characteristics. We pay for top rung service and get spotty at best.
Its the way of the world. The guy whose ski-do died and he swarm to shore, jumped the JFK fence and walking over two runways to get the to the terminal is more relevant here as a/c safety was compromised. Again–all that automated equipment doesn’t work after millions spent “for our safety.” He was charged with whatever…. hope/assume the DA will drop it or the jury gets him off.
Security. There is a cost… to be balanced against everything else.
Looks like the main character in Alien.
Not good for your health is about all I can say.
Off topic. More evidence that the fed gov is getting ready to shoot one heck of a lot of Americans: http://infowars.com/national-weather-service-follows-dhs-in-huge-ammo-purchase/
the 46,000 rounds of hollow point ammo comes from Anoka,Mn – home of Federal Premium Ammunition – a wholly
owned subsidiary of ATK – and the supplier of at least 450 million rounds of .40 cal
ammo this year to homeland security as well as the mfin noaa national weather service (hoo-aaaah)
– it’s certainly to protect us from the muslim hordes taking over our government – definitely not to
make money for the largest employer in Michelle Bachmann’s hometown and 6th congressional district –
a large contributor to her campaign and probably Citizens for a Working America – they don’t
disclose their donors – oh -a little side note – Fox’s Gretchen Carlson is also from Anoka –
Security? What “security”?! Just look at the recent incident where a stranded jet skier hopped the fence at JKF, walked across 2 active runways and breached nearly every security system in place. Right here in the good old USA!
http://cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57491856/stranded-jet-skier-breaches-jfks-$100m-security/
I say we give these security people dresses and make them dance around whenever they’re not feeling up the flying public. As long as their putting on a show for us, why not?
What do you want the poorly trained simians at the gate to do?
Pull the rag out if their collective asses and watch the runways?
That’s some honky’s job, like the ground crew or janitor or somebody.
They’re not expecting to have to do any actual work.
They expecting to steal your cell phones, tablets and laptops, to stare at images they get off the naked body scanners and to yell incoherent mental dribblings that are supposed to tell you that they have something you want, to get the fuck away from there.
You have a boarding pass. You can wave these hemorrhoids goodbye with a universally recognized one finger salute.
They’re fuckin’ stuck there; commuting between the airport and home, meaning where ever the rents are low enough; eating their lunches out of old brown paper bags or chewing on the over priced crap* from the Cinnabon at the gate and having to sweat into polyester uniforms that make even UPS drivers glad their rags only look like turds all day**.
Don’t mistake these low-wage, low expectation, low IQ pricks and dykes for security.
They’re just poorly paid actors employed by Dick Cheney’s old buddies to act the fools while they are costing top bucks to the airport, airline and ultimately to you.
*) And I do mean crap>/i>. The most expensive, and indigestible, meals in New York is a dirty water hot dog served at any of the three airports.
**) My crotch chafes just thinking about it.
Can’t be as bad as this one (NSFW)
http://angie.datavibe.net/gifs/BJ-xray.jpg
Security for national (as in… European) flights is not as strict as international flights.
Check-in counters for selected, potential target, countries (US included) are in a separate area, where police do walk around, weapons drawn and pointed low.
What this dude did, comes as no surprise. I’ve seen people playing soccer in the terminal while waiting for boarding, the flight was a few hours late and there was nothing else to do.
I can totally see how a guy can fall asleep on the luggage belt and take a trip through the x-ray machines.
I am surprised it does not happen more often.
While americans are ‘potty trained’ in obeying the government with tons of TSA abuse, security in many other airports around the world is ‘way more relaxed’ (read: normal).
No doubt those x-ray scanners for bags are way more powerfull then any average x-ray scanner in a hospital, I only wonder how long it will take for this guy to develop a nice cancer. That is, if he does not die before from a bad liver.