Air China B738

From time to time we read in the mainstream media that a plane had to unexpectedly land because of smoke in the cockpit. Or because of an engine shut down in flight. Or because of a medical emergency. Whoever relies on information provided by the mainstream media will think such occurrences to be exceptions. While statistically that may well be so, reading The Aviation Herald (http://www.avherald.com/), that reports on incidents and news in aviation, will however give you quite another impression. In addition, you will also find quite peculiar stories such as the one posted on Friday, 27 November 2009, under the heading "Incident: Air China B738 over China on Nov 24th 2009, money disappeared". Here it is:

An Air China Boeing 737-800, flight CA-1103 from Beijing to Hohhot (China), was enroute about 30 minutes into the flight, when two police officer in plain clothes noticed a passenger eyeing other passenger's luggage. The passenger stood up, walked to some luggage and returned to his seat about one minute later. The airplane continued to Hohhot for a safe landing.

The police officers asked all passenger to look after their luggage and check, whether the contents were complete. One passenger stepped forward stating, that money were missing out of his backpack stored in the overhead luggage compartment.

The police officers therefore arrested the passenger they had noticed earlier during the flight. The man tried to mislead police by presenting two false identities to them. Police assumes, that the man had committed more thefts on previous flights. The two police officers in plain clothes had been dispatched to stop frequent thefts, that had been reported in the recent weeks.

And these are the comments by readers:

Wow, how many police departments would bother to send anyone, let alone 2 officers, on a flight to conduct surveillance for theft! Good one.

I love police action and when they take down the bad scum of the world!

Air China seems to have had some bad pr around this lately. I wasn't there, but this looks a little staged to me.

Seems for unlikely that they would happen to be on the particular flight this was happening on. Unless the other lefts were on this particular flight or route then I also think it was staged. The Chinese are notorious for propaganda stunts such as this.

ha. its funny how no one trusts any news out of china. i wonder how aware of that their government is.
If it is true it's great to hear. but does sound quite unbelievable to me.

Given the population of China, it would seem plausible that they have the manpower to place officers on all flights. I'm still in awe of the cast size for the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony.