Bet you're thinking either of aliens and doomsday or terrorist activities. But lo-and-behold in the land of the unexpected we have had occurrences of these sorts several times in last decade. There was the Moti-gate in 2006, last year (2012) we had the Djoko Tjandra affair and most recent was last Thursday. Reports where all over social and mainstream media of a suspicious Boeing 737 like this one taken from The National

The Boeing 737 chartered flight from International JetClub Ltd is known to provide private charter service worldwide.
It landed at Jackson Airport after immigration was closed.

The most alarming thing is these illegal ‘landings and take-offs’ of airplanes, happened at Jacksons’s Airport, our country’s main gateway!

Now I don’t know much about airport protocol but I assume that if an aircraft is of unknown origin the first thing air traffic controllers would try to do is find out first if there is a security risk. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Jacksons’ Airport Control Tower has the technology to make an assessment of this while the plane is in mid-air.

So next logical plan of action is to shoot the plane right?! Jokes…but on a serious level the next logical thing to do would be to disallow anyone from that suspicious plane to disembark and send armed customs officials to check the plane.

So according to our friends at The National here's what happened next

Neither police nor the customs and immigration departments found anything to hold the plane back.
PNG Customs Commissioner Ray Paul late yesterday afternoon said: “Customs is satisfied that all its clearance formalities were fully complied with and that outward clearance will be granted after consultations with other relevant stakeholders.”
He said the jet was registered in the United Kingdom as N111 VM, and it flew into Port Moresby from Gan Island, Republic of Maldives, with anticipated outward clearance for yesterday.
“PNG Customs was verbally informed of its arrival by the Air Niugini operations staff Brian Foremost at 5pm, which was three hours and 30 minutes prior to its arrival,” Paul said.

Okay, so customs was okay with the fact that there was only 3 hours prior notice given for arrival and there were no arms or great sums of cash stored on board.

But if we keep letting individuals 'wanted' by our neighbors to use our ports as their 'transit lounge' then what sort of image are we painting to our neighbors?

We let Moti go, we let Tjandra go and we let these men wanted by Vanutu Authorities - go so what happens when someone that is wanted by PNG authorities ends up in Australia, Vanuatu or Indonesia?

I mean the saying "Do unto other's as you would have them do unto you!" should be seriously taken to heart in moments like these.

If neither customs nor the police are being vigilant and strict on what sort of individuals we let into our country then who do we depend upon to protect the integrity of PNG's borders and our national security?

©Klaireh