Posted on 02/28/2005 6:25:25 PM PST by sailor4321
Lighters to be banned on airline flights
2 hours, 38 minutes ago
By Kimberly Morrison, Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Airline passengers will have to ditch their lighters or lose them to airport security screeners when a new ban on lighters takes effect in April.
The ban reflects Congress' fear that lighters could be used to ignite bombs on planes or otherwise damage or destroy them. The Transportation Security Administration until now had banned all but butane lighters and said each passenger could carry no more than two.
TSA's new ruling extends the ban to all butane lighters, effective April 14.
Proponents of the ban, including Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., cited the case of convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who tried but failed to light explosives in his shoes with matches. Had Reid been using a lighter, he might have brought down the plane, Dorgan said. Reid was sentenced to life in prison in 2003.
The butane lighter ban is expected to streamline security procedures, because in the past screeners had to distinguish between butane lighters and types that were banned.
The Department of Transportation bans lighters in checked baggage, so passengers wanting to keep them have few options aside from returning to their cars to stow lighters or handing them off to non-fliers.
The U.S. Postal Service considers lighters to be hazardous material and will not mail them.
Passengers can continue to carry up to four books of matches, but that, too, is under reconsideration, said TSA spokeswoman Amy Von Walter.
"If they want to be serious, they should include books of matches, otherwise this is just stupid"
"Passengers can continue to carry up to four books of matches, but that, too, is under reconsideration,"
Last line of the article.
"My guesstimate based on personal experience"
I travel quite a bit and have never been hijacked. My experience is they are %100 competent. :-)
I'm just stunned they banned nail clippers.
I have known some folks who were pretty inventive when it came to weapons, and none of them could figure out how a nail clipper was going to be more lethal than a good pen...
That said, I have long felt that issuing each willing passenger a sheath knife would even the odds for the passengers. Especially if you remind them that no plane not in the control of the flight crew will be allowed to fly into any major urban area.
A lot of time they make you take a drink from your water bottle if they see them .Happened to me .How about banning Moslems from flying .That would make too much sense though .
LOL OUr tax dollars at work. We leave our borders wide open, but ban smokers from their lighters in case they want to light a "bomb."
Morons.
On the plus side this will get the smokers panties in a wad. On the downside they will be even more crankey than they already are.
Well, that's the point others seem to have missed. In their hysteria, they banned nail clippers but they still allowed matches and lighters which, IMO, pose a much greater potential danger.
The worst I could see happening with clippers is that they could potentially cut an important wire if they knew exactly what they were going after and removed the panelling to access it. Starting a cabin fire would be far more doable and lethal even if there was no explosive shoe brought on board.
And yet nail clippers, I guess, in some bizarre stretch of the imagination, resembled box cutters enough to think they were a threat. That, or it gave screeners far easier access to women's purses than they might otherwise be allowed to have.
Paying Passengers Soon to Be Banned on Domestic Airlines!
If lighters are so dangerous, why are they still being allowed for another six weeks?
If the lighters are dangerous, why not ban them today?
Is that how long the 'security' lines are now at the airports?
And they still drag their feet on arming pilots.
This would be funny if it wsan't so pathetic.
Or maybe the threat isn't as real or pervasive as some would have us believe?
I doubt any intelligent person would. But they sure got raked over the coals for banning it in the first place.
I can't say I equate the FAA with our troops either. That's rather ludicrous.
The FAA had years of experience with overseas flights and the anti-terrorism efforts by airlines such as El Al to know what terrorists are likely to do. These were not in effect domestically on 9/11 because there was no perceived need for it and the flying public would not have stood for it.
After 9/11, they overreacted and began banning things right and left. Some of their measures were perfectly sensible. Others, like banning clippers, were incredibly laughable and served only to make the whole thing look incompetant.
FWIW, I'm not deriding their decision to ban lighters. I'm asking "what took them so long?". Particularly when you look at some of the things they have banned (even if some have since been rescinded) you'd think somebody would have decided before 3-1/2 years later, that carrying on something with the ability to start a fire was a security risk.
Badray writes: "You may have the last word. You're a waste of time and bandwidth."
Then writes:"Or maybe the threat isn't as real or pervasive as some would have us believe?"
Guess that wasn't the last word? You're such a kidder.
"I can't say I equate the FAA with our troops either. That's rather ludicrous."
Let's see. Both are gov't programs and gov't funded.
Both are charged with defending the country, protecting the public. Both are trained to ID potential enemies. Both can be in dangerous or threatening situations from the enemy.
Both must receive training to carry out that charge.
Yeah, takes a big leap in logic to see the similarities.
Yup. Each person boarding a U.S. airplane must take a bite of bacon. Eat a bite of bacon, board the plane. No more terrorists in the skies!
Different thread. Different posters.
Same old smartaleck spewing the same old crap and I didn't want to let it go unchallenged on this new thread.
You didn't ask the question that I posed to you yesterday. Are you a petty government bureaucrat. Is that why you defend this bureaucratic BS?
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