[Gritty]

Shahid Basksh used expired pilot credentials...

I note it was "gate workers" who made the catch, and not the TSA screeners.

No doubt Basksh didn't fit their strip search profile: blue-haired grandmothers and octogenarian Medal-of-Honor winners, so he got passed right on through.

[shamusotoole]

We need to express thanks to the gate workers. All levels of folk need to be on guard for the unexpected. Well done!

As to being released to his own recognizance, that doesn't leave me resting very easy. If he would have joked about terrorism, or been a little belligerant to a flight attendant, he would have landed in jail. For example, a Bavarian tourist coming to the US several years ago, joked to a flight attendant that if he couldn't get into the lavetory soon, "the roof will come off." After spending 6 months in jail for joking about or threatening terrorism, a judge realized he was speaking his local dialect, and that what he said meant he had to go potty real bad.

I believe faking pilot credentials is at least as serious as what the hapless Bavarian did. I pray to God that PC is nowhere in this equation.

[jlogajan]

I note it was "gate workers" who made the catch, and not the TSA screeners.

Screeners are looking for contraband. I don't think they have a means to verify identities.