German sports reporter issues airline bomb hoax

Merkur: Deutscher EM-Reporter hält Flugzeug mit Bombendrohung auf

A German sports reporter who turned up late for his flight from Verona in Italy to Vienna in Austria turned to extreme methods to try and get on the flight. Denied boarding by check-in staff, he then phoned through a bomb hoax and reappeared at the check-in desk, saying he'd heard the flight hadn't left yet. Unfortunately for him, this hadn't been announced yet and he succeeded only in attracting attention to himself. His mobile phone later showed him as the source. Verona airport was closed for several hours.

I just heard this on the radio, but oddly enough they didn't report that it was a German.

Probably similar to Chinese people just calling it food rather than Chinese food.

WOW:::talk about desperate. I'd hate to be this guy, his whole life as he knows it just terminated...facing international felony charges, most likely job lost, his wife will eventually get over the whole affair and walk out, etc. etc. all i can say is...a whole in the job market just opened up!

Well, yeah, but if the Chinese media reported on the radio that a man in Italy died from shoving food up his nose a listener would surmise that both he and the food was Italian, oder? My point's in there somewhere. Long day.

What an idiot. I don't know how low an IQ you need to have to qualify as an EM reporter, but that beggars belief.

Not exactly a part of this thread, but related - How is it that a bomb hoax call can still manage to hold up a flight?

After all, today passengers are subjected to all kinds of humiliation before boarding a flight; frisking, fondling, walking through body scanners etc. Even baggage is subjected to all kinds of checks; X-Ray, UV light, dogs / scent detectors etc.

In such a scenario, if some nutcase calls up with a bomb threat, airport security officials should be confident enough to say "No way!" and proceed with the flight plan. Holding up a flight means lack of confidence in the security measures.

It may be irritating to those passengers who get caught up in it, but you can never be 100% sure with these threats. I'm sure people will look back in a few years (as they do already) and wonder how the hell some people managed to fly 2 planes into central Manhatten.

If there's just a 0.0001% chance that the plane I'm on will blow up, I'd rather get off, wait for a few hours, and be sure. I'm guessing the airport officials feel the same.