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Cawthorn Busted At Charlotte Airport With Loaded 9mm Handgun

Cawthorn Busted At Charlotte Airport With Loaded 9mm Handgun

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) was caught with a loaded 9-millimeter handgun on Tuesday at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, a local television station reported, in violation of federal regulations.

It's the second time in as many years that Cawthorn has tried to bring a handgun into an airport.

In February 2021, Cawthorn attempted to board a plane at Asheville Regional Airport with an unloaded 9-millimeter handgun in his carry-on luggage. At the time, a Cawthorn spokesperson said he had the gun in his carry-on by accident.

Federal regulations prohibit passengers from carrying a gun in carry-on luggage.

Passengers can only transport guns if they are unloaded and checked "in a locked hard-sided container," according to the Transportation Security Administration. Travelers must also declare that there is a firearm in the luggage, according to the TSA.

This is not Cawthorn's first run-in with law enforcement in recent weeks.

In March, Cawthorn was pulled over while driving in Asheville and charged with driving with a revoked license. He has a May 6 court date for the citation.

It was the second time he was caught driving with a revoked license. In 2017, Cawthorn was charged with the same misdemeanor offense, but the charge was later dismissed.

Cawthorn has also received two speeding citations in the last year — one in October 2021 for going 89 mph in a 65-mph zone, and another in January for going 87 mph in a 70-mph zone, according to a local media outlet.

What's more, the Washington Examinerreported on Tuesday that Cawthorn could possibly be implicated in an insider trading scheme involving a cryptocurrency called "LGBCoin," a play on the "let's go Brandon" slogan that conservatives use to taunt President Joe Biden and Democrats.

Cawthorn often talks about the need for the "rule of law" in society.

In January, he tweeted, "I believe in the rule of law."

In October 2021 Cawthorn tweeted, "The rule of law is key to the American system."

Aside from his own run-ins with law enforcement, Cawthorn's behavior has also rankled his GOP colleagues.

In March, Cawthorn accused unnamed Republican lawmakers of having orgies, earning him a scolding from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who told Cawthorn that there "could be" consequences for his behavior — though he did not say what they would be.

And in January, Cawthorn angered first responders when he cleaned his gun during a virtual hearing on burn pits killing veterans.

"It was immature. He's a child. He lacks common sense," John Feal, a 9/11 first responder who attended the hearing, told the Daily Beast at the time. "I think the congressman was overcompensating for something that he lacks and feeling inadequate among the heroes on that call."

Cawthorn's Republican primary opponents for his 2022 reelection bid have used his own behavior to criticize him.

"Here in the mountains, we don't seek the limelight. We put our heads down and we get to work," GOP state Sen. Chuck Edwards, one of Cawthorn's opponents, said in a recent campaign ad. "If you want a celebrity, go watch the Kardashians."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Teen Stowaway’s Footprints, Handprints Found On Wheel Well Doors, Tire

Teen Stowaway’s Footprints, Handprints Found On Wheel Well Doors, Tire

By Joseph Serna and Kate Mather, Los Angeles Times

Images of footprints and handprints inside the wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 jetliner appear to bolster the fantastic story of a Santa Clara teenager who reportedly survived a frigid, perilous journey cooped up inside as a stowaway.

The images, including of a footprint on the tire below the wheel well, were taken by Hawaii News Now, and appear to support the boy’s story of surviving the 5-hour flight from San Jose while enduring sub-zero temperatures and deathly thin air.

Authorities said it was a miracle the 15-year-old boy survived in the wheel well, as oxygen was limited at the jet’s cruising altitude of 38,000 feet, and the temperature could have dropped to 50 degrees below zero or lower.

He then managed to stay in the wheel well when the bay doors opened twice in the air.

“The more remarkable thing from a science and medical standpoint — how did he survive the plane? How does he not fall out?” said Armand Dorian, associate clinical professor of emergency medicine at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital who treated a wheel well stowaway in 2000. “You can survive all those things, but how do you prop yourself into that thing?”

Only 25 of the 105 people who have attempted to stow away in the wheel wells of planes in the last 67 years have survived the ordeal, according to FAA records. Those who do not fall or freeze to death can be crushed by moving landing gear or die from lack of oxygen.

Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Alison Coyle said the wheel well doors open twice during typical flights — about one mile after takeoff to stow the landing gear, and three to five miles before landing to free it.

“I don’t think he could pull it off twice, luck was on his side,” Dorian said. “I almost think you got to give this guy a medal just for surviving this.”

A spokeswoman with Hawaii’s Department of Human Services this week said the boy was resting comfortably in a hospital and is preparing to go home to Santa Clara. Authorities in Hawaii and California say they don’t plan to charge the teen with trespassing and are instead focused on how he accomplished his journey without being caught.

According to a federal law enforcement source who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the case, a security camera at the airport recorded video of a person coming over a perimeter fence at the airport just after 1 a.m. Sunday.

The Hawaiian Airlines flight didn’t take off until about six hours later, indicating that the boy apparently went undetected for hours.

Brian Jenkins, an aviation security expert at Rand Corp., said that only the boy would be able to fully account for his actions leading up to the flight.

“From where he went over the fence to where that plane was, where was he in between that period of time?” Jenkins said. “Was he in contact with other people? And does that represent another point of failure?”

AFP Photo/Patrick Baz

California Teen Survives After Stowing Away On Flight From San Jose To Hawaii

California Teen Survives After Stowing Away On Flight From San Jose To Hawaii

By Mark Gomez and Robert Salonga, San Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Authorities say a 16-year-old Santa Clara boy is “lucky to be alive” after he ran away from home, clandestinely scaled a fence at Mineta San Jose International Airport, and hid inside the wheel well of a plane flying from California to Hawaii in a case that has raised immediate questions about airport security beyond the terminals.

A congressman who serves on the Homeland Security committee said the startling episode was a reminder of how significant gaps still exist even in an era of ultra-tight airport security that has been in place for a dozen years.

“I have long been concerned about security at our airport perimeters. #Stowaway teen demonstrates vulnerabilities that need to be addressed,” tweeted Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.

Airport spokeswoman Rosemary Barnes said the airport’s security program “meets and exceeds all federal requirements” and works closely with the Transportation Security Administration and the San Jose Police Department. But the perimeter fence where the boy trespassed, which was caught on surveillance video, is monitored by the airport.

“No security program is 100 percent,” Barnes said. “We’re continuing to review video to determine where in fact he was able to scale the section of fence line, how he was able to proceed onto a ramp and get himself into the wheel well of that aircraft.”

Barnes said the boy, under “cover of darkness,” climbed a perimeter fence sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning. He then walked or ran across the airport ramp and got inside the wheel well of Hawaiian Airlines flight 45 that left San Jose at 7:55 a.m. and landed five-and-a-half hours later at Kahului Airport in Maui.

The Hawaiian Airlines gate is the northernmost gate at the airport, and the northwest area of the airport grounds is not heavily occupied. Barnes said that overnight, most of the gates are occupied by planes, and the first bank of flights typically depart starting at 6:30 a.m.

Also likely to be under close examination is the actual fencing that was designed to keep out intruders.

“It’s typically six feet and in some sections they’ll put barbed wire at the top of that,” Barnes said. “We have 1,050 acres. That’s a lot of fence line. He could have scaled the fence line really through any area here at the airport. It’s very easy to do so under the cover of darkness, and it appears that’s what he did.”

That the boy survived literally puts him rarefied air, as several similar stowaways in the past have died from frigid temperatures, lack of oxygen or being ejected from the plane as the landing gear is lowered.

The last known person to survive as a stowaway in a flight that long was Fidel Maruhi, who in 2000 also hitched a ride in a wheel well from Tahiti to Los Angeles, a seven-plus-hour and 4,000-mile trip where the temperature dropped to nearly minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit.

In August, a 13- or 14-year-old boy in Nigeria survived a 35-minute trip in the wheel well of a domestic flight after stowing away. Authorities credited the flight’s short duration and altitude of about 25,000.

The Santa Clara teen was questioned by the FBI after being discovered on the tarmac at the Maui airport Sunday morning with no identification, Simon said.

“Doesn’t even remember the flight,” FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu told The Associated Press on Sunday night. “Kid’s lucky to be alive.”

The boy had run away from his family after an argument, Simon said, adding that when the Boeing 767 landed in Maui, the boy hopped down from the wheel well and started wandering around the airport grounds.

“He was unconscious for the lion’s share of the flight,” Simon said.

Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Alison Croyle said airline personnel noticed the boy on the ramp after the flight arrived and immediately notified airport security.

A photo taken by a Maui News photographer shows the boy sitting upright on a stretcher as authorities get ready to load him into an ambulance. Simon said the boy was medically screened and found to be unharmed.

The boy was released to child protective services and not charged with a crime, and TSA alerted the boy’s parents. San Jose police said “the incident will be reviewed to determine if charges will be filed.

AFP Photo/Patrick Baz

‘Pipe Bomb’ Discovered In Carry-On Luggage At Anchorage Airport

‘Pipe Bomb’ Discovered In Carry-On Luggage At Anchorage Airport

By Michelle Theriault Boots, Anchorage Daily News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Transportation Security Administration agents found what Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport police have described as a “pipe bomb” in the carry-on luggage of a man ticketed on an oil worker flight to the North Slope Sunday, forcing an hour shutdown of the security checkpoint.

The man initially claimed the small explosive was an “avalanche device,” said Jesse Davis, chief of the airport’s police and fire department.

“I don’t know of any avalanche dangers up on the North Slope,” he said.

The FBI is interviewing the man, whose name has not yet been released, Davis said.

Police downplayed the incident, saying the public was never in danger and the pipe bomb appeared to lack a triggering device.

No motive is yet known.

At 1:55 p.m., screeners at the Anchorage airport’s only security checkpoint for ticketed passengers discovered the small explosive device in the carry-on luggage of a man ticketed on a Shared Services Aviation flight, Davis said in a phone interview Sunday night.

Shared Services Aviation is a joint service of ConocoPhillips and BP that flies oil company employees and contractors to the North Slope.

When the device was discovered, the TSA cleared passengers from a 300-foot radius around the security checkpoint where the explosive was discovered, said Sharon Long, an airport operations officer.

The citywide Explosive Ordinance Disposal team arrived and took the device off-site, Davis said.

The pipe bomb lacked a triggering device, he said. “It appeared based on their knowledge that it wasn’t an immediate danger to the traveling public.”

There was no airport-wide announcement about what was going on, Davis said.

The security checkpoint was back up and running by about 3 p.m., Long said.

Some flights may have been delayed due to an hour lapse in passenger screening, according to Davis.

An Anchorage FBI spokeswoman did not immediately respond to phone calls about the case Sunday night.

Photo: Shyb via Flickr