French police loses explosives

[brownie]

A French police training exercise went wrong...

From BBC News:

RETHINK AFTER PARIS AIRPORT GAFFE

French police say they will ban their technique for training dogs after a bag with plastic explosives was lost at a Paris airport during an exercise.

Police placed the bag in a passenger's luggage at Charles de Gaulle airport to see if sniffer dogs would detect it, but it was then loaded onto a flight.

The order to halt such training methods came after Prime Minister J-P Raffarin voiced concern at the bungled exercise.

Police say the explosives used cannot be activated without detonators.

However, the bag in which they were planted has still not been traced.

PASSENGER 'AT RISK'

"The procedures that were used Friday night will no longer be allowed," Pierre Bouquin, spokesman for France's police force known as gendarmes, was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

"We're going to stop practicing this on the bags of travellers," the spokesman added.

Earlier, Jean-Pierre Raffarin insisted that any future training must guarantee "the respect of the private life of passengers".

"The fight against terrorism and insecurity is a priority for the government, but [Raffarin] made clear his concern in the face of the way the training... was conducted" at the airport, a statement from Mr Raffarin's office said.

The statement said the existing procedures were "susceptible to making the relevant passenger run a risk in the eyes of foreign authorities when arriving in the destination country".

WHISKED AWAY

During the exercise, police deliberately placed the bag with up to 150g explosives in a randomly chosen passenger's luggage as it passed along a conveyer belt.

One of the sniffer dogs involved in the exercise successfully detected the item, but the other failed.

Police than tried to repeat the exercise, but the bag had been mistakenly whisked off.

The explosives could have made it onto any of 90 flights leaving Charles de Gaulle airport that evening, police said.

[AfricaBrass]

Hmmm...

I wonder who was in charge of this exercise?

Maybe it was...

[Phil Meloy]

French police spokesman Pierre Bouquin said "Indeed, it's possible that someone will have a surprise when he opens his bag."

Well yes I expect they would - wouldn't they?.

[bertrand]

Zut alors.

Bertrand.

[rockefeller center]

Recommended book:

[brownie]

Now it's the U.S. turn to loose a bomb!

From AP:

Newark airport screeners spot - then lose - fake bomb

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Baggage screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport spotted - and then lost - a fake bomb planted in luggage by a supervisor during a training exercise.

Despite an hours-long search Tuesday night, the bag, containing a fake bomb complete with wires, a detonator and a clock, made it onto an Amsterdam-bound flight. It was recovered by airport security officials in Amsterdam when the flight landed.

"This really underscores the importance of the TSA's ongoing training exercises," said Ann Davis, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, the agency responsible for screening passengers and baggage for weapons and explosives. "At no time did the bag pose a threat and at no time was anyone in danger."

Earlier this month, French authorities lost a bag containing real explosives that were being used to train bomb-sniffing dogs. That led French authorities to prohibit using live explosives in future tests.

New Jersey Sens. Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg on Wednesday wrote to TSA chief David Stone, calling the fake bomb loss "alarming" and asking for an investigation.

The Newark incident was only the latest embarrassment for screeners at one of the airports from which some of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers took off.

In October, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported screeners missed one in four fake explosives and weapons in secret weekly tests conducted throughout the summer by TSA agents.

In Tuesday night's test, a TSA supervisor secretly placed the bomb, which was designed to resemble the plastic explosive Semtex, inside a bag that was put through screening machines, Davis said.

A baggage screening machine sounded an alarm, but workers somehow lost track of the bag, which was then loaded onto a Continental Airlines flight.

No flights were delayed and the terminal remained open.

Davis said the TSA is still investigating how screeners lost track of the bag.

"It was an error that the bag was not intercepted before it was loaded," she said, adding it was too soon to say if anyone would be disciplined.