Faid Beydoun, a man with multiple passports including one from Lebanon, leapt off a second-floor Concourse at Miami Airport yesterday, falling 25-feet and breaking his arm and ribs — as he fled from law enforcement after TSA officers became suspicious of him. 

In an interview yesterday with TSA Headquarters, Spokesman Christopher White told me, "Our behavior detection officers spotted him [Beydoun] acting suspiciously and continued watching him. He engaged a TSA Travel Document Checker who observed that he had multiple travel documents that did not match. That added up to additional screening for him. Instead, he fled."

From the Miami Herald:

''He bolted and knocked a few people out of the way, '' said Mark O. Hatfield Jr., TSA's airport security director.

Chased by Miami-Dade officers, the man jumped over the second-floor departure concourse and landed outside the baggage-claim area. Despite the broken bones, he ran a bit further.

The officers on the first floor were able to apprehend him and place him under arrest,'' said Miami-Dade Detective Alvaro Zabaleta, a spokesman. He was whisked away to the jail ward at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where on Monday night he was being questioned by local, state and federal investigators.

Two other men, also headed to Los Angeles, were taken off a later flight still on the tarmac. They told investigators they had paid for the man's plane ticket and that he was their Miami Beach party guide.

The Herald also reports:

His jail record lists an alias: Miguel Garcia.  

Which brings to mind something I reported on two weeks ago,  3 Afghans Arrested At Indian Airport with Mexican Passports.

Local News 10 in South Florida reports that according to the police report, Faid Beydoun "had a half-gram of cocaine in his luggage."  

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21-year old Benjamin Baines, Jr. was arrested on Sunday at Tampa International Airport after a TSA screener found a box cutter in a hollowed-out book in his backpack. The photograph at right was provided by the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority.

According to a report from the TSA, the books in Baines' backpack included "Muhammad in the Bible," "The Prophet's Prayer" and "The Noble Qur'an."  

Thomas W. Krause of The Tampa Tribune broke the story this morning. "Airport security ran Benjamin Baines Jr.'s backpack through an X-ray machine and saw the image of a box cutter." 

Baines told federal authorities he forgot the box cutter was in the book.  

"After Baines was read his rights, he said his cousin had cut away the pages to make the hollow section in the book. Later, reports state, he said he had hollowed it out himself to hide money and marijuana from his roommates.

Baines told officers he was moving to Las Vegas and forgot the cutter was in the book."

According to the Tribune, Baines was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and is in a local jail. The FBI is investigating. 

Correction 2.21.08: This story was first reported by Steve Huettel of The St. Petersburg Times: TIA Finds Cutter Hidden in Book. Huettel reports further in Box Cutter Suspect Faces Federal Charge.

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Three Afghan nationals are being held in New Delhi, India after they tried boarding a flight to France, via Kuwait, using Mexican passsports identifying themselves as:

Antonio Lopez Juan (42)

Javier Sanchez Alberto (20)

Atonio Lopez Ernesto (16)

According to Indian press reports, the three men departed from Nedumbaserry Airport in India, on February 11, without incident. When they arrived in Kuwait, emigration officials found them suspicious because they did not speak any Spanish. They were deported back to India. 

The three had reportedly arrived in New Delhi on January 23 this year, as per the stamps on their passports. However, there was some doubt about the authenticity of the arrival stamps on the passports. 

Officials in India said the Mexican Embassy in New Delhi is involved. 

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A Somali woman stormed the cockpit of an Air New Zealand propeller plane in New Zealand earlier today, stabbed both pilots and threatened to blow up the nineteen-seat aircraft. Reuters reports that she was at the controls of the plane before she was subdued. The flight landed safely and the woman is in custody. From the Associated Press:

"None of the seven passengers were injured, but the pilot suffered a severely cut hand in the attack and the co-pilot was injured on the foot. Police did not say who restrained the woman aboard the flight."

Air New Zealand general manager Bruce Parton says the airline is reviewing its passenger security system. In New Zealand, passengers generally do not undergo security when flying domestically.

(photo credit: REUTERS/Stringer) 

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CNN's Jeanne Meserve and producer Mike M. Ahlers went along with an undercover TSA official on a covert test of airport screeners in Tampa. The story is fascinating and shows in detail how screeners continue fail to find mock bombs in secondary screening scenarios.

In defense of the troubling findings, The TSA says techniques like as the one used in Florida are already known to terrorists and openly discussed on terrorist web sites. The TSA also says it is no longer "running from tests" but embracing "the idea that testing has a value."

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This morning's newswire story of the 16-year old boy arrested in an alleged hijacking plot raises a number of questions for the TSA. Never mind the reports (later dismissed by the FBI) about the teen wanting to crash the plane into a Hanna Montana concert. Or the more serious allegation that he had a mock cockpit set up in his California home. With TSA not returning calls, my question remains: how did the passenger get through TSA's 19 layers of security with handcuffs, rope and duct tape in his bag? 

I checked the TSA's list of prohibited items and was surprised to discover that handcuffs are mysteriously absent. In its six years of service, the TSA has changed its rule set on what you can and can not bring on an airplane a total of 25 times. Next up, rule change #26.

Here's a sampling of what you can't bring on an airplane — as of today:

Box cutters: No

Ice Axes/Ice Picks: No

Meat Cleavers: No

Sabers: No

Swords: No 

Ski poles: No

Spear Guns: No

Firearms: No

Realistic replicas of firearms: No 

Gun powder: No 

Axes and Hatchets: No

Cattle Prods: No

Drills and drill bits: No

Saws (including cordless, portable power saws): No

Stun guns/Shocking Devices: No

Flares (in any form): No. 

Dynamite: No

Hand Grenades: No

Plastic Explosives: No

Gasoline: No

Gas torches: No

Tear Gas: No

Beverages larger than 3 oz: No 

Snow globes: No

How soon will handcuffs, rope and duct tape be added to this list?  

Anyone with further information on this flight, I can be reached at: Annie@TheAviationNation.com. 

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Congress has released a report detailing flaws in a TSA website so riddled with security flaws that Congressman Henry Waxman calls it "mindboggeling." The site was set up to help passengers remove their names from faulty watch lists but was so riddled with security holes, it could easily have been hacked into. 

"It is mindboggling that TSA would launch a Web site with so many security vulnerabilities," Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the committee, said in a statement.

But that's not all. During the course of the inquiry, Congressional investigators discovered that a TSA official named Nicholas Panuzio awarded $500,000 worth of no-bid contracts to Desyne Web Services in Boston. Panuzio is a former employee of the company and "still met regularly with Desyne's owner and others for drinks and dinner," according to the Congressional report. From the Washington Post:

Congressional investigators raised concerns about a conflict of interest in how the no-bid contract to create the Web site was awarded. The TSA employee who framed many of the contract's requirements and was in charge of overseeing the site was once employed by the firm that was awarded the contract — Desyne Web Services, a small firm in Boston, Va. — and socialized with members of the company, according to the report by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

The TSA continues to use Desyne on various projects, the report said, and has awarded the company no-bid contracts worth about $500,000.

TSA officials reached by the Post called the issue "old news." 

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Audrey Hudson reports in today's Washington Times that US Airways and Minneapolis airport officials want a jury trial in the civil rights lawsuit filed against them by six Muslim clerics removed from a flight for acting suspiciously.

This is a good move for aviation security. Settling this kind of egregious lawsuit for cash would further tie the hands of clear thinking flight crew who, when they see suspicious behavior by passengers, report it to law enforcement officers trained to asses the situation. The imams were questioned and let go.

"The airline and Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which oversees Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, are also claiming immunity for their employees named in the suit, citing a "John Doe" law passed by Congress last year that, among other things, protects people acting in an official capacity to prevent terrorist attacks."

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