As head of security I was
informed that we had an aircraft returning to the gate with a passenger on board causing problems and was considered a security
risk.
The
gate was on the other side of the airport and my only means of transport was to run, which I did. Through the glass I could
see the aircraft entering the gate area. I called on the radio not to pull the jetway forward untill I was there, that message
did not make it to the gate agent. By the time I arrived on the jetway the door of the aircraft was open and the agent was
onboard.
I inquired of
the problem passenger and the gate agent said he bolted off the aircraft when the door opened, but he had caught up to him
and told him to wait by the podium untill we could assist him. To this statement I informed him his gate was empty and the
aggitated passenger was gone. To compound the situation he wasn't sitting in the proper seat so we had no idea who we were
looking for.
It
took a half hour to go through the manifest and figure out the missing persons name, and during this process I made the decision
to groung the aircraft untill a thourough search could be made, this would take 4 to six hours. As the bags would need to
be screened and searched by an explosives dog. and all carry-ons had to removed and hand searched. To this
end we stole an aircraft going to a neighboring city and transfered all screened baggage and passengers over to this aircraft,
this cut the delay down to 2 hours instead of possibly 6. But now we had two flights facing delays of two hours or more
because someone just couldn't listen. If he had stayed and we could have resolved his problem to satisfaction, only one flight
would have taken a minor delay, not two. Now I was faced with the problem of dealing with our missing passenger.
All available agents
were searching all flights for the name of our runner, he was located just 6 gates down trying to board another flight to
his destination. As I entered the gate the agent on duty pointed him out, I approached him and inquired his name. Confirming
it was the same person I asked him why he bolted and did not follow the last agents instructions to wait. He informed me that
he was claustrophobic and the last aircraft was to confining, I pointed out that he was switching from a wide body DC10 to
an airbus 310 a much smaller aircraft, and that this didn't make sense. He then informed me that he believed something was
wrong with the DC10 and he panicked. I Informed him that I felt because of his irrational behavior I couldn't allow him to
travel that day, he was welcome to return another day when he felt better about traveling. He wasn't amenible to that idea
and started to vehimently argue with me. I asked him for his ticket and in large letters wrote across the front "NOT VALID
IN DESIGNATED CARRIER" and signed it. I then had his baggage retrieved and returned to him and let him know he would have
to find another way across country.
Three months later
I was sitting in a courtroom 3000 miles away defending my actions against a frivilous lawsuit. After hearing both side of
the case the judge dismissed the suit and recomended we might want to consider reversing the suit to retreive some of our
losses.
