Browsing the Daily Mail website to find amusing stories about how anyone brown is out to ruin society, I came across an interesting story about a mid-air heist. A passenger on a small plane removed panels from the toilet, climbed into the hold, and stole a large sum of cash in transit. Very Hollywood.

It seems that the plane was a small ATR-42 turboprop plane – which normally only has one toilet. It must have been quite hard for him to monopolise it for the entire journey. I also wonder how he got the tools onboard to enable him to get into the hold – maybe the small airport security isn’t too rigourous? Also, where did he conceal such a large amount of cash when leaving the plane?

I like the idea of stealing high value items from the hold of a passenger plane. I can see many advantages – the cover of engine noise, the delay in being found out, the assumption that once the cargo is on the plane, it is safe. But on how many planes is this even possible? Outside of the Hollywood portrayal of cargo spaces (Air Force 1, Flightplan etc.), how many can be easily accessed from the passenger space?

On a side note, I have remembered how much I love cutaway diagrams: