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The Brisbane Times claims that a newspaper reporter looking to point out the holes in New Zealand’s airport security system managed to sneak a knife and a toy revolver aboard an Air New Zealand flight to Napier. The airport in question is Auckland Airport where the reporter boarded the flight carrying a suitcase with the weapons as part of cabin baggage.
According to the reporter, there were no checks to go through — all he had to do was show his boarding pass, and he was allowed to board the plane. The Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand was quick to condemn the reporter’s stunt as irresponsible, and pooh poohed his allegation of lax security measures at Auckland airport, saying that passengers on flights with leas than 90 people on board did not routinely have their bags screened.
The stunt came just a day after a woman attacked two pilots with a knife that she had in her bag. Asha Ali Abdille demanded that the plane be diverted to Australia and in the ensuing scuffle, another passenger was injured, besides the two pilots.