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Back in January, I wrote about United Airlines flight UA37 between Edinburgh Airport (EDI) and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). It was cancelled on January 20th when one of the pilots was allegedly found to have a Taser in his bag. Without a backup pilot to operate the flight, United was forced to cancel it and leave passengers waiting to get back to the United States. The case has now gone to court and a fine was imposed without jail time.
Taser is the brand name for a Conductive Energy Device (CED). These weapons generate around 1,500 volts of electricity in extremely short pulses once they make contact. The shock neutralizes a person and allows law enforcement or others to take them into custody more easily. According to The Mirror, it’s “illegal to possess, purchase, acquire, manufacture, sell, or transfer one without lawful authority.”
In the wake of the September 11th attacks, United Airlines trained its pilots to use CED-style stun guns. The “Federal Flight Deck Officer” program allowed qualified pilots, flight engineers, navigators, and others permission to carry firearms onboard commercial flights. This does not appear to apply in this situation.
According to a witness at Edinburgh Airport (EDI), the 56-year-old pilot named Ryan Cecil was arrested, charged with a firearms offense, and removed from the premises. The flight was quickly cancelled. A United Airlines spokesperson told Edinburgh Live:
This employee was immediately removed from service and we are fully cooperating with local authorities.”
Cecil reportedly told a security officer that the stun gun was a flashlight. It was hidden inside a sock, but picked up in the x-ray machine. Possession of high-voltage stun guns (Tasers) is illegal in the United Kingdom under penalty of fines and jail time. Cecil then admitted it was a stun gun but said he accidentally brought it into Scotland.
Cecil’s lawyer made this statement to the court:
He was completely unaware it was in his bag. That bag went through security checks and went undetected, and he spent two nights in Edinburgh before planning on flying back. He fully accepts this was gross carelessness by him, and the item in question is not a regulated item in the United States.”
Luckily for the pilot, the court fined him around $11,000 and did not impose any custodial sentence. Cecil is lucky that the judge showed some leniency here as it could have gone much worse.
Anthony’s Take: Regardless of whether he knew it was in his bag or not, Cecil should not have been carrying this into Scotland. The fact that it was tucked inside of a sock is a little suspicious to me, but I think the sentence of a fine is acceptable in this case.
(Image Credits: United Airlines.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
