A recent news item made me feel really good about the progress the TSA people have made in keeping our aircraft secure. They have recently discovered a brand new way of securing our airways from terrorist attacks.

            They simply damage the airplanes!

            An important TSA discovery was made recently when agents from this air security brain trust decided to inspect over a dozen of a particular airline’s aircraft by climbing on various probes. They used them as hand-holds too. In this fashion, angle of attack vanes, total air temperature probes and even pitot tubes were bent, destroyed and basically taken out of the flying business.

            By official TSA estimates, over two dozen terrorist attacks were thwarted using this method of keeping airliners safely on the ramp. President and former Air National Guard pilot, George W Bush, issued a statement praising the TSA, saying: “they were good decisioners” and “what’s a TAT probe anyway?”

            Personally, as an airline pilot, I never really knew that TSA people were allowed on the ramp – I assumed their duties kept them confined to terminal buildings where they could happily carry out their body cavity searching and laptop computer confiscating activities. Perhaps they accidentally fell out of one of the many airline terminal emergency exits and while lying like a wet carp on the tarmac decided to do a few aircraft inspections.

            It may be days or weeks before the damaged airplanes can once again be threatened by airborne terrorists.