• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Weirdest thing that has ever happened to you at the airport?

CLAX1911 said:
Why is he brown because he is Korean?
Click to expand...

Don't know. He's very brown. He is my stepson, but I've been with him for 22 years, so I call him my son. His mother is full Korean, and his father is of Polish descent (very pale) so it's odd that he is so dark complected. I'd have sworn she was stepping out on my husband, but he looks a lot like my husband. Just darker.
 
Wan said:
You are Korean?

Also, shouldn't Koreans be yellow instead of brown? Brown is usually reserved for Mexicans and maybe Middle Easterners.
Click to expand...

Nope. And they aren't "yellow" - that's not cool.

As I mentioned, he is often mistaken for Mexican or middle-Eastern.
 
Superfly said:
Nope. And they aren't "yellow" - that's not cool.

As I mentioned, he is often mistaken for Mexican or middle-Eastern.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean "yellow" in a derogatory way. Heck, I am Asian myself. But usually "yellow" refers to people of Asian ancestry.
 
Superfly said:
Don't know. He's very brown. He is my stepson, but I've been with him for 22 years, so I call him my son. His mother is full Korean, and his father is of Polish descent (very pale) so it's odd that he is so dark complected. I'd have sworn she was stepping out on my husband, but he looks a lot like my husband. Just darker.
Click to expand...

Maybe his birth was later than usual, and he overcooked a bit?
 
Superfly said:
My son, who is always patted down because he is brown (Korean), had his fiancee patted down today also.

They then chose her at random to search her bag. They found a bag of unopened grits that I gave her (special kind I've only found down south) and they actually checked the bag to make sure it wasn't explosive.

What's the weirdest thing you've had happen to you at the airport?
Click to expand...

An airline once went out of business while I was waiting for a flight on this airline. I had to buy a ticket on a different airline to get home.
 
When I was stationed at the embassy in Cambodia I boarded a flight to Bangkok for a conference that was being held by our counterparts there. I was sitting next to another American and chatted a bit. He looked familiar but he wasn’t a celebrity. I realized he was on a list of wanted sex offenders we were about to distribute to host country law enforcement but hadn’t yet.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I was just a military Attache with no authority. I had useful contacts on my Blackberry but it wasn’t working at altitude. So during the short flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok I chatted him up, confirmed his first name and he even told me what hotel he was staying in, assuming he was being honest. He didn’t have reason to lie to me because I didn’t tell him I was with the embassy and he wouldn’t have known he was on our radar. I figured at least I could give the authorities the hotel he was staying at.

As soon as we were free to disembark I made a beeline to immigration. Diplomats have their own expedited line. I got up there, flashed by black diplomatic passport and told them what was going on. I gave them the contact info to the USLEGAT (FBI) office at the embassy and called them myself to give them a heads up.

I hung back a bit to watch and when I saw immigration take him into a back room I knew I had done all I could do. I later found out he was extradited along with several other pedophiles.

It is likely he would have been intercepted anyway the next time he tried to fly once Thai and Cambodian authorities had entered his name into their systems. But I like to think I at least ruined whatever plans he had for that particular trip.
 
Superfly said:
Don't know. He's very brown. He is my stepson, but I've been with him for 22 years, so I call him my son. His mother is full Korean, and his father is of Polish descent (very pale) so it's odd that he is so dark complected. I'd have sworn she was stepping out on my husband, but he looks a lot like my husband. Just darker.
Click to expand...

Oh, just curious. I haven't been to the airport since the TSA started doing their searches.
 
Weirdest thing that has ever happened to you at the airport?
Click to expand...

Herat, West Afghanistan....watched the local police in an old green Ford Ranger chase sheep and goats from the end of the runway to fly out on an Ariana Airways flight to Kabul......and while walking out onto the flight line to board the aircraft, the co-pilot was leaning against the front landing gear puking his guts out.


That was the last time I flew civil air our of Herat, or any other place in Afghanistan besides Kabul International Airport.
 
Was standing on the carpet at PDX and a couple asked if I could move my feet out of their carpet/feet pic.
 
Bum said:
Herat, West Afghanistan....watched the local police in an old green Ford Ranger chase sheep and goats from the end of the runway to fly out on an Ariana Airways flight to Kabul......and while walking out onto the flight line to board the aircraft, the co-pilot was leaning against the front landing gear puking his guts out.


That was the last time I flew civil air our of Herat, or any other place in Afghanistan besides Kabul International Airport.
Click to expand...

This reminded of another.

Not far from my home airfield of Farmingdale NY (FRG) is a tiny strip called Spadaro airpark (1N2). It's used - or at least used to be used since I haven't been there in years - mostly by a skydiving operation. It's a strange little field in a couple of respects. First there's another airfield right next door - Lufker that has a turf runway. The two fields are connected by a taxiway and you can literally taxi from one airport to the other.

The other is that with a runway 2400' long and 22' feet wide it's got one the narrowest runways around, certainly the narrowest I've ever encountered. And the 22' is generous considering that the asphalt at the runway edges back then was in pretty poor shape. For comparison purposes most general aviation field runways run anywhere from 75 to 150 feet wide and places like JFK are up around 200 feet wide.

Anyway I decided to land there one day just to see what it's like to land on a really narrow runway. Landing was fine, in the end you aim to put the nosegear on the centerline, not that this strip actually had a centerline, so everything outside the track of the main gear is just wasted excess anyway.

What I didn't bank on was the angry junkyard dog that I apparently woke up who came out of wherever he was hiding barking and snarling. He literally ran alongside the plane raising holy hell until I took off again. Guess he didn't like visitors. I've landed at plenty of airports where they have to chase birds off the runway on occasion. This was the first - and last so far - I've been chased off by an angry dog.
 
Superfly said:
Are you famous? My son saw Patricia Arquette today at the airport. I was so jealous. She was in my favorite TV show of all time, forever and ever, amen. I asked him to go get an autograph for me, but he wouldn't do it. :( I'm kind of glad he didn't do it, because that would not be cool to intrude on her personal space, but I nerdgasm'd for a minute.
Click to expand...
Funny you bring this up.

Awhile back, my family went to a motor race where we were guests (courtesy of my uncle) at the Newman-Haas pit suite. It was fun and of course we got to met their two drivers, but my grandma FLIPPED OUT, because she had no idea that the "Newman" was Paul Newman, and she got to meet him.

Normally, he didn't do autographs, since people have asked him at urinals at whatnot, but he was too sweet to say 'no' to an old lady. :2razz:
 
Superfly said:
:lol: Sounds douchey. They seem to be on a power trip. I've not had a lot of trouble with them, but I'm middle-class white-bread, so they don't look at me as suspicious.
Click to expand...
I've been patted down before and I'm white.

My mother says in my case it's probably because agents think I have a great ass, and they can't resist - even the hetero males! She's a real trip, my mother. :rolleyes:
 
Superfly said:
I was thinking of that very scene when I started reading your post, before I got to the gif.

"You're messing with the wrong guy!"
Click to expand...
They definitely were that day.

To make matters worse, I was behind some mother****er that kept firing off rancid farts, right in front of me. God damn it, I could have killed that guy! Obviously, I was cranky after not being able to breath for an hour and half.
 
1994, USAir in Tampa. taxied onto runway and the pilot kept turning until we were back on taxiway and headed back to terminal. Pilot reported an issue that was eerily familiar. 2/3 of the passengers got off the plane and didn’t return.

The previous day, a USAir plane, of the same model had crashed in Pittsburgh with the same issue. After 1/2 hour, the few of us left took off. The pilot noted, he wasn’t going to take off until he was satisfied with the condition of the plane. Smooth flight.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Skeptic Bob said:
When I was stationed at the embassy in Cambodia I boarded a flight to Bangkok for a conference that was being held by our counterparts there. I was sitting next to another American and chatted a bit. He looked familiar but he wasn’t a celebrity. I realized he was on a list of wanted sex offenders we were about to distribute to host country law enforcement but hadn’t yet.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I was just a military Attache with no authority. I had useful contacts on my Blackberry but it wasn’t working at altitude. So during the short flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok I chatted him up, confirmed his first name and he even told me what hotel he was staying in, assuming he was being honest. He didn’t have reason to lie to me because I didn’t tell him I was with the embassy and he wouldn’t have known he was on our radar. I figured at least I could give the authorities the hotel he was staying at.

As soon as we were free to disembark I made a beeline to immigration. Diplomats have their own expedited line. I got up there, flashed by black diplomatic passport and told them what was going on. I gave them the contact info to the USLEGAT (FBI) office at the embassy and called them myself to give them a heads up.

I hung back a bit to watch and when I saw immigration take him into a back room I knew I had done all I could do. I later found out he was extradited along with several other pedophiles.

It is likely he would have been intercepted anyway the next time he tried to fly once Thai and Cambodian authorities had entered his name into their systems. But I like to think I at least ruined whatever plans he had for that particular trip.
Click to expand...

That's a very cool story. Extremely cool.
 
Bum said:
Herat, West Afghanistan....watched the local police in an old green Ford Ranger chase sheep and goats from the end of the runway to fly out on an Ariana Airways flight to Kabul......and while walking out onto the flight line to board the aircraft, the co-pilot was leaning against the front landing gear puking his guts out.


That was the last time I flew civil air our of Herat, or any other place in Afghanistan besides Kabul International Airport.
Click to expand...

Not sure which of your story was worse. :lol:
 
MovingPictures said:
Funny you bring this up.

Awhile back, my family went to a motor race where we were guests (courtesy of my uncle) at the Newman-Haas pit suite. It was fun and of course we got to met their two drivers, but my grandma FLIPPED OUT, because she had no idea that the "Newman" was Paul Newman, and she got to meet him.

Normally, he didn't do autographs, since people have asked him at urinals at whatnot, but he was too sweet to say 'no' to an old lady. :2razz:
Click to expand...

What an absolute prize!

My brother got an autographed photo of Harrison Ford as Han Solo, way back in the 70s. If he still had it, it would probably be worth quite a bit.
 
MovingPictures said:
I've been patted down before and I'm white.

My mother says in my case it's probably because agents think I have a great ass, and they can't resist - even the hetero males! She's a real trip, my mother. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Your mother sounds awesome. My mom is too serious. I am the exact opposite. I have been told I skew 14 year old boy. I am into toilet humor and old school video games. I am nothing at all like either parent.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
1994, USAir in Tampa. taxied onto runway and the pilot kept turning until we were back on taxiway and headed back to terminal. Pilot reported an issue that was eerily familiar. 2/3 of the passengers got off the plane and didn’t return.

The previous day, a USAir plane, of the same model had crashed in Pittsburgh with the same issue. After 1/2 hour, the few of us left took off. The pilot noted, he wasn’t going to take off until he was satisfied with the condition of the plane. Smooth flight.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I think I might have been part of that 2/3rds.
 
Superfly said:
My son, who is always patted down because he is brown (Korean), had his fiancee patted down today also.

They then chose her at random to search her bag. They found a bag of unopened grits that I gave her (special kind I've only found down south) and they actually checked the bag to make sure it wasn't explosive.

What's the weirdest thing you've had happen to you at the airport?
Click to expand...

never got patted down in the airport, but I use it very little, some of it was with an m-16 on me in the military, but the airports we used were pre cleared ahead of time for military weapons, and instead they would search with a wand for other crap we were not cleared to have. But even though us airports cleared my unit, in romania we had to leave the rifles on the jet, with guards designated to watch them, some military officers though the rules did not apply to them and tried to carry their m9 pistols in the airport to get caught at the checkpoints, followed by a speach by romanian guards saying us stupid americans could not follow instructions.


as far as non military situations in civilian airports, I got to watch a drunk woman try to strip down in the waiting area forget if it was dfw or atlanta, but she was topless and darn near close to naked before the guards took her out of there.
 
Bum said:
Herat, West Afghanistan....watched the local police in an old green Ford Ranger chase sheep and goats from the end of the runway to fly out on an Ariana Airways flight to Kabul......and while walking out onto the flight line to board the aircraft, the co-pilot was leaning against the front landing gear puking his guts out.


That was the last time I flew civil air our of Herat, or any other place in Afghanistan besides Kabul International Airport.
Click to expand...

Never had a civilian flight in afghanistan, but watched as the crew was patching up an old I forget the name of it now russian airliner with duct tape, and even the locals passing by were laughing at it. By the end of the deployment that jet still did not fly, all the other ones did but that one looked ragged even after numerous attempts to fic it(the duct tape was hillarious) but this was in mazer-i-sharif or however you wish to spel it in northern afghanistan, as the locals have multiple spellings of it as well all pronounced the same.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom