Czeched Baggage? The Answer To Why Hellfire Missiles Are Being Sent To Portland, Oregon; The Most Interesting Man On Earth And His Thoughts About Flying Serbian Air -- March 14, 2016

Updates

March 14, 2016, 7:49 p.m. Central Time: Keystone Kops. State Dept now says Hellfire missiles destined for Portland, MAINE, not Portland, Oregon. Who's in charge of the US State Department? Probably reported many places, this link here: no explanation given for mix-up.

March 14, 2016: we have the answer to why the Hellfire missiles were being sent to Portland. It is all part of the city's art program. From our daughter who lives there:

The MAX (Portland's light rail) stop closest to us is the Rockwood stop and it has these "decorative" spikes on it.  I always thought they were really missiles disguised as art with each spike pointed at the right trajectory for specific targets.  Maybe they are filling them up now... or refilling...

Original Post

Czeched Baggage

Keeping Portland Weird

I don't even know where to begin filing this, what tag to use.

The Huffington Post is reporting:

Serbian authorities are investigating reports that two missiles were found in cargo headed to the U.S on a passenger flight from Lebanon to Serbia.

The cargo containing the pair of "armor-piercing missiles" aboard an Air Serbia flight from Beirut was discovered Saturday at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport. The missiles had been packed in wooden crates, according to Serbian TV station N1.

Serbian media reports say the cargo was bound for Portland, Oregon.

Czeched baggage?

And why in the world were the Hellfires headed to Portland in the first case?

But it gets weirder. Here's how the Pentagon responded:

There's no legitimate reason for the missiles to be on a passenger flight, Robert Caruso, a former State Department and Pentagon staffer, tweeted Sunday. The missiles, he speculated, were probably stolen.

And this guy is paid "the big bucks" to come up with conclusions like these. He shouldn't jump to these conclusions. Oregon is seeded #1 in collegiate March Madness and the Hellfires may have been part of the planned celebrations if Oregon advances to the finals. 

Okay...

And this from Serbian Airlines:

Safety and security is Air Serbia's number one priority.

But it's not the airline's fault. It's the airport authority's fault.

According to Aleksander Radić, a military analyst who spoke with N1, while weapons are occasionally transported through Nikola Tesla airport, it is completely unheard of for that be done via passenger plane. He added that airport procedures mean that the airport is responsible for checking all baggage before putting it on board, not the specific airline.

I'm glad we cleared that up. A lot of folks might have otherwise canceled their Serbian Air reservations.

I can't make this stuff up.

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The Question & Answer Page

I asked whether the most interesting man in the world has/had ever flown Serbian Air. I was told the most interesting man in the world has always preferred flights in which the number of takeoffs exceed the number of landings by exactly one (1). I was unaware of this video until just now: