
It is what happens when you start to panic
The attempt by a suicide bomber to blow up a US flight on
Christmas day has resulted in a crack down in airports around the
world. However it is starting to appear that computer systems are not up to
the increased severity of patrolling such paranoia.
A company official says a United Airlines Express flight
headed to Chicago had to return to St. Louis because of computer
trouble in screening passengers. Spokesman Fred Oxley said GoJet Airlines, the regional
carrier operating the flight, had a problem with its computers Friday
morning, and manually checked in passengers.
However when the computers started to work again one of
the passengers matched one on the Transportation Security
Administration's “no fly” list. There was wide spread panic and the Airline ordered the
flight to turn back. When it landed GoJet checked the passenger out and
it turned out that they were not same person on the list. The plane
took off again around 9:30 a.m. and landed in Chicago.
The TSA's no fly list has been criticised before because
it is mostly a list of people that were not on George Bush's Christmas
Card list rather than being a terrorist threat. However the computer
systems that administer the list seem to be short on the sort of
information that identify the people correctly.
If John Smith, 43, from
New York, is identified as a terror suspect then ALL John Smith's who
are 43, from New York will be questioned.