A couple years ago I boarded a plane in KC and saw in the bin over my seat a metal corkscrew wine bottle opener with a short bladed knife attached. Since I was about 10 rows back, I made eye contact with a man still coming down the aisle and asked him to give it to the flight attendent, which he did. I gave it no more thought until we missed our departure time and some security people came on board. They went up and down the aisle several times until they stopped next to me and told me to keep my hands in sight and come quietly with them.
As we hit the jetway there were additional security types and the cockpit crew (big and burly guys)who surrounded me and demended my wallet. It was handed to someone who ran up the jetway with it. Then in an intimidating tone they demended to know why I had brought a weapon on board, if I had any accomplices, how I snuck it through security, etc. I couldn’t believe it since 45 minutes earlier I had been lucky enough to be tapped for a manual search of me and my carry-on luggage when I entered the terminal security process.
After repeating my story several times, I insisted that they talk with the man seated across the aisle from me who had seen what I did and shared my concern that the corkscrew was found in the bin after the planed had been cleaned. They finally did that and confirmed my story, but it wasn’t until the man returned with my wallet and said that they had entered me into the domestic and international terorist database and didn’t get a hit that they let me return to my seat.
While on the jetway it seemed that at least two people were always demanding information from me at the same time. It was more than a bit disturbing trying to keep up with it while simultaneously wondering how the good guy was the one in the hot seat. After we left and reached flying altitude, the flight attendent came over, apologized and said that their union had unsuccessfully been trying to force the airlines to ban corkscrews from airplanes – but they were still legal to have because they were required for opening bottles of wine in first class cabins! Sweet.
