Brian Matthews (Flight International, 23 December 2003-5 January) suggests that the passengers on a flight to Brussels and their baggage should have been offloaded and rescanned and the aircraft thoroughly searched before departure following the discovery of a passenger preparing fruit with a knife. Of course, this would also have been blatantly inadequate. I think that all relevant security personnel should have been dismissed immediately and their scanning equipment scrapped without delay. Also, all aircraft that departed and were still airborne during the period that they were on duty should have been called back or ordered to land at the nearest airport without delay and all passengers, baggage and aircraft exhaustively searched. We don't want half measures, do we?
Hubert van der Horst Overveen, Netherlands
Source: Flight International