The time: a weekday - around 19:30 - a few weeks back.
The place: Pink Elephant business car park for Terminals 1, 2 and 3 - Heathrow Airport.
The context: I had just arrived there by courtesy shuttle from the terminal to get into my car for the drive home - having just arrived back into London from a couple of days in Munich on business.
The scene: Me peering through the car-park perimeter fence at a 747 that had just landed on the runway around 100 metres from where I was standing. In fact, so mesmerised I was by the sheer amazement of it all - I must have been standing there for around 10 minutes - watching in fascination at a few more planes coming in to land; immersing myself in the sights, smells and deafening sounds of reverse engine thrust as they dropped gracefully out of the skies and onto the ground.
The consequence: I was suddenly startled by the sound of a car screeching to a halt behind me. I spun round and panicked at the sight of a half-uniformed officer with a handgun in his hip-holster jumping out of the passenger side - with his colleague following rapidly behind. It was like a scene out of The Bill - only more firightening because it was for real - and the weapon looked more menacing. They even left the car doors open in their hurry to get to me. I must have entered into momentary shock - because I just froze in my own adrenalin - wondering in a semi-daze what was going to happen next. But it all happened so quickly. The ensuing dialogue went something like this:
“Do you have a car here sir?”
“Er - yes.”
“Could you point it out to us sir?”
“Yes - it’s that dark blue Honda Civic estate over there” (nervously pointing to my car a few metres away.)
“Could you show me your ticket please?”
“Sure” (I fumbled around inside my trouser pocket for the Pink Elephant parking ticket - and showed it to the first cop)
“OK, very good - can I ask that in future you make your way straight to your car please sir. It made the Control Tower very nervous seeing you standing at the fence - so they sent us here to investigate.” (The other cop was speaking into his radio at this point - presumably to the Control Tower).
I breathed a sigh of relief at this point and apologised profusely. They wished me well and drove off - just as quickly as they had arrived. I got into my own car - and started up the engine. But I stopped for a moment and looked toward the direction of the Control Tower: I guessed that it must have been about 1 kilometre away. I had this very creepy feeling that somebody was standing there staring at me through a pair of high-powered binoculars …
Posted by jag at September 25, 2003 06:22 PMCrikey! Lucky you weren’t interrogated (or worse!). I suppose it’s a good sign though - they should be vigilant these days. I imagine it’s hard to find a balance between being vigilant and being too vigilant at such a high-risk location.
Posted by: Stu on September 25, 2003 06:35 PMEeep… that happened to you just standing there. I guess they were just trying to be safe, but pretty major steps
Posted by: Jaina on September 25, 2003 09:08 PMStu, Jaina: yes - I felt really good driving back home that day - once I’d overcome from the shock of it all - it kind of felt good that it happened. I mean, I was casually dressed and had a ruck-sack slung over my shoulder - and I had been standing at the wire-fence on the perimeter of the runway for around 10 minutes motionless. Who knows what I could have been up to? (I could have had a rocket-launcher in my bag!) And it also occurred to me that anybody could just hitch a ride into these massive runway-side car-parks from the terminal buildings. No ID required. Yes - so it felt sort of reassuring that the Control Tower had someone spying on the perimeter fences surrounding the airport. It took me a while to blog about it because I sort of felt a bit guilty that it happened - but with hindsight it’s worth sharing the episode so that people know that this aspect of airport security is being covered.
Posted by: Jag on September 25, 2003 10:17 PMHmm. That’s quite sad, actually. When I was young, it was a common pastime to go out to the end of the runways and watch the planes take off. As a teenager, we’d sit and chat for hours as they flew over the top of us.
Not a good decade to be a plane-spotter, is it? ;-)
Posted by: Lisa on September 26, 2003 07:51 AMVery often I go past that point (Pink Elephant Parking) by coach. When I near the runway fence I used to think that I should get down one day and watch the big birds for a while.
I never realised that its this dangerous.. Feeling a bit more secured now..
Posted by: Chakra on September 26, 2003 09:42 AMOne of the best blogs i have ever seen. U must be putting all the time only to blogging - Godlike
Posted by: sathish on September 26, 2003 10:49 AMI did that once along with my father long ago at our local international airport in chennai, Police did stop me, but then we sorted out the situation
Posted by: sathish on September 26, 2003 10:51 AMGee Sathish - “Godlike” eh? I like that. Thanks!
I wonder what it would be like if I put more time into it …
Posted by: Jag on September 26, 2003 01:19 PM