NBC news stupidity

"B2431" wrote:
...
How far were they prepared to go? If they had displayed the weapons
in flight
to prove they could do it it would be just as criminal, in my
opinion, as
telling a stewardess in flight you have a bomb even if you didn't.

The are federal criminal laws which apply to air carrier and what is a
weapon, and they apply to media doing undercover stunts. I know of no
criminal law which says you cannot have a utility knife on board a
charter aircraft.

This flight could even have been Part 91. Is it now OK for some
do-gooder to observe a passenger of ours who looks Middle Eastern and
has an apparent large knife and odd stuff to put in the aircraft, and
call the police? Because he appears to the citizen not to be known to
you.

If you say OK, they'll come out and ask a few questions and everything
will be cool. But what if they surround you and your friend with
drawn weapons?

I'm not defending what NBC did, nor a big fan of the ACLU, and the FBO
acted laudably. But unless there's a criminal law violated here, this
incident shouldn't sound all that good to us pilots.

Fred F.