"Norwegian flight grounded after pilot refuses security check"

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Norwegian flight grounded after pilot refuses security check
The Associated Press


OSLO, Norway - A Norwegian airline flight was canceled on Tuesday because
its pilot refused a required security check and went aboard with a security
guard on his heels.

"I have never heard of anything like it," said Jo Kobro, spokesman for the
Oslo Airport, at Gardermoen, north of the capital. Kobro said he did not
know why the pilot refused to cooperate.

The pilot was scheduled to fly the early morning Norwegian Air Shuttle
flight DY742, with 60 passengers on board, from Oslo to Trondheim, on the
western coast.

According to Kobro, the pilot refused the security check required of all
crew members since December 2003 under European Union rules.

"After several attempts to get him to go through, he walked past security
and to the plane," Kobro said. A security guard followed the pilot to make
sure he did not hand anything to other people.

The pilot, identified only as experienced and a Norwegian citizen, took his
place in the cockpit, until he was persuaded to leave, Kobro said. Police
were notified but did not step in.

Since he had not been cleared, the entire Boeing 737 had to be evacuated and
the passengers sent through security again "because it was a contaminated
area," said Anne Grete Ellingsen, a spokeswoman for the airline, which
operates under the name Norwegian.

The fight was canceled, and the passengers sent on a later flight, she said.

"He was an experienced pilot," Ellingsen said by telephone. "This was not a
mistake."

The pilot's access card to the airport was canceled, he was grounded and
will face a disciplinary hearing from the airline and will be reported to
Norwegian aviation authorities. His name was withheld because it is a
personnel matter.

Neither Ellingsen nor Kobro would speculate about his motives, although both
said crews become frustrated having to be cleared many times a day, before
each flight.

"But this is completely unacceptable to us," said Ellingsen. She said the
airline was investigating, but that she had no grounds to suspect that he
was trying to smuggle something on board.

"That would make it even worse," she said.


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