El Al passenger flies with gun to New York

Josey1

NEW YORK (January 29) - Airport authorities are investigating how an Israeli managed to fly on an El Al plane to New York last week with a pistol in his hand luggage, without being detected at Ben-Gurion Airport or at the airport in New York. Upon his arrival, the man called the consulate in New York to inform it of his actions. A source at the Israeli Consulate confirmed that the man had contacted it, but declined to elaborate. The Israeli man noticed he had unwittingly carried a gun in his luggage when he arrived in New York over the weekend and immediately informed Israeli officials of the security breach, an Israel Airports Authority spokesman said yesterday. "We are carrying out an internal inquiry," the spokesman said. "The main thing is to find out whether it was a human failure or a technical failure. We hope to get an answer... It's worrying us." Security at the airport, which is usually regarded as extremely rigorous, is the responsibility of the Airports Authority rather than individual airlines. "When he arrived at the hotel he started to sweat when he found his personal handgun in his luggage," the spokesman said. "He went right away to the consulate." In an incident last Friday, a 16-year-old South African kibbutz volunteer boarded an El Al plane in Lod for Johannesburg carrying a magnesium flare shell in his suitcase. Just prior to takeoff, the boy told a flight attendant he was carrying the flare. Security authorities removed both the boy and his suitcase from the plane, and investigated them. The boy had been given the flare by a friend on the kibbutz. Upon arriving at the airport, he had undergone a routine security check, said nobody had given him anything to carry with him, and was given permission to board the plane. His suitcase was not searched. http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/01/29/News/News.42473.html