Couple find a knife aboard Air Canada flight
Employee left tool used to repair seat and airline didn’t consider it a security breach
As Glenn Deir sat down on a St. John’s-to-Toronto flight Saturday morning next to his wife, he could tell something more than the tight legroom was making her uncomfortable. Deborah Youden, who had been “squirming,” was sitting on a folded four-inch pocket knife.
“We opened the blade and it’s this nasty-looking knife . . . with a serrated edge,” Deir said, noting Youden had been patted down at random by security before boarding, so it couldn’t have been hers.
“We said, ‘How in the name of God did this get on the plane?’ ”
When Deir showed the knife to the flight director, his “eyes popped” at the sight of the blade.
“Then he showed the pilots and their eyes popped, and then he showed the ground crew and their eyes popped,” Deir said. “We were all astonished, really.”
The discovery is startling at a time when even water bottles aren’t allowed through airport screening and as security measures surrounding flight are constantly updated.
The knife turned out to have been dropped by an employee who had been working on the plane before the flight, Air Canada said.
“We can confirm it is a tool that an AC employee was using to repair a seat on board the aircraft and not a security breach,” said company spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick in an email. “In fact, the employee was still on board the aircraft speaking to the captain when the tool was brought to the crew’s attention. All tools were removed before the flight departed.”
But Deir says the incident begs security questions about employee screening in airports.
“Does this prompt any kind of review of procedures for Air Canada?” asked Deir, a retired CBC Newfoundland television and radio reporter. “What kind of screening do airport employees go through when they come in to work and go through secure areas?” Deir says he and Youden were pleased by the on-board crew’s swift response.
The first attendant he spoke with followed up with the couple during the flight to let them know he’d filed an incident report. He also found out the mechanic had left the knife there.
“I feel some sympathy and a little bad for the mechanic because he’s probably having a ton of bricks strapped on his head,” Deir said, adding he doesn’t think it’s something anyone should be fired over.
But the fact seats are known well ahead of flights, through automation, makes Deir all the more wary.
“It does make you think, ‘Gee, what if I was up to no good? What if a mechanic was up to no good? He could leave a weapon.’ So the mind does reel at the possibilities of wrongdoing.”
Deir says he and Youden are experienced travellers, having visited France, Spain and Las Vegas this year, but Saturday was the first time they’d found a weapon on a plane.
Except once, a couple of years ago in Croatia, when Deir almost brought his own.
“I forgot I had a pocket knife in my knapsack . . . and they took it from me, as they should,” he said. “So I suppose, in one way, one airline took it from me; another airline could’ve given it back to me if I had really wanted it.”