Do you get extra airmiles if your flight is diverted?

It looks like a platinum-plated passenger was responsible for the redirection of an LA-London flight to New York earlier today.

Michael Chertoff, director of Homeland Security, was somewhat upbeat about the idea that anyone can whisk past security by clambering onboard an employees-only bus and find themselves on the plane without further ado:

"The good news here is that you have somebody who's alert on the crew and they take appropriate steps at that point to deal with what might be a potentially dangerous situation," Chertoff said. "That's exactly what we are asking people to do: If you see something, say something."

The bad news, of course, is that everyone is spending hours and hours queueing, removing their shoes, having their kidneys x-rayed in a parody of security while there's a bloody great side-door swinging open. It is wonderful that the crew picked up on the anomaly - but if this had been someone intent on doing bad, it would probably have been too late by the time the plane had landed in New York, wouldn't it?

Also: we know they could hardly have said "We're landing because there's a desperado on board" over the intercom, but...

Anthony Loynes, one of the 188 passengers aboard the flight, told CNN the pilot told passengers the plane was stopping at JFK because the plane did not have enough fuel to make it to London.

That's the way to keep the passengers calm: "we somehow managed to set out with just enough fuel to plunge into the Atlantic..."