I held up a plane to catch a thief

[MagicalMystical]

Not me, I didn’t hold up plane to catch a thief but I’ve just read about it in the Guardian. What an amazing story!! Anyone got any others? I really enjoyed this one. 🤩

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/apr/04/experience-i-held-up-a-plane-to-catch-a-thief

Brilliant, but I’d love to hear it from the side of passengers sitting next to the thief, I’d love to know if he at least looked sheepish, or if he was arsy about handing it over.

Yeah! Me too! Do you think he did it by mistake? I’m still wondering if, when the police arrived, he was perplexed and apologetic as I would be or if he knew he’d been rumbled.

Four years of medical school notes, as well as reams of unfinished writing from my year as a journalist, had vanished.

I have to say though, BACK UP YOUR STUFF! Surely most of us have learnt this by losing trivial stuff, before we get to the point of risking four years of vital notes.

Yeah that’s true, I hadn’t thought of that. Do you think they added that as a point of drama for the story? Surely most/all devices automatically back up to the cloud these days?

Maybe that's the problem, they assumed some kind of automatic backup and there wasn't one.

You should not put loose items into the security trays. Everything needs to be bagged. My DH is such a fool - just empties his very large pockets with all sorts of shit swimming in the security trays - watch, passport, money, phone, tech etc all on display. I put a rucksack into the security tray with a jacket carabiner clipped to it. I sometimes have a bumbag as well which is also on the carabiner clip so that there is nothing to easily grab individually.

People book flights every single day purely to steal stuff in airports, not to actually go on holiday. They just fly back and do some more stealing. I know someone who had their family's passports in a little holder and they were stolen going through security. They literally had to cancel their holiday as they had no passports!

Until recently you HAD to put items separately in the trays. I used to hate to see my phone, laptop, kindle etc sail away down the belt and into the throng the other side, while I am inevitably held up at the body scanner and asked to remove my shoes yada yada. I started putting stickers with my name on, on my things. Last time though we could keep electrical items in our bags though, which was great.

They still ask you to take out electronics. I got told off once in another country for leaving keys inside my rucksack.