Norwegian Flight Grounded After Pilot Refuses Security Check
''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.