This week’s Icarus award has new iterations of some classic travel failures. Our nominees include an animal smuggler, a drunk and randy flyer, a high-profile Southwest passenger-eviction, a botched toy-inspired terrorist plot and more. Read about this week’s nominees and register your vote for the worst offender below.

Pecker Packing Passenger

As previous Icarus winners will attest, pants are a prime vehicle for smuggling―animal smuggling. First it was snakes in the pants, now it’s rare birds. A Dutch traveler, who already has one previous conviction for animal smuggling, was caught trying to smuggle a dozen live hummingbirds in his pants. The smuggler had sown 12 pouches inside his underwear where the birds wrapped in clothed and taped down so as not to escape. The traveler was caught and arrested when he was acting suspiciously in Rochambeau airport in Cayenne, French Guiana. It is unclear if local authorities are pressing charges.

Image Credit: Burlington_rc via Flickr Creative Commons

A Model Terrorist

Rezwan Ferdaus, a 26-year-old American citizen from Ashland, Massachusetts, has been indited by a federal grand jury on terror charges. Ferdaus, who is a physics graduate of Northeastern University, is said to have been planning to use remote-controlled airplanes to hit the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol building. Ferdaus was caught in an elaborate FBI sting, where undercover agents encouraged him to lay out his plot in explicit detail In a statement to the press, federal officials laid out his plan to arm “small drone airplanes” with explosives in order to hit the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol building before opening fire on the survivors. The grand jury indicted Ferdaus on six counts, including “attempting to damage and destroy a federal building by means of an explosive” and “attempting to provide material support to terrorists.” Neither Ferdaus nor his attorney have yet to release a comment.

Don’t Tell Drunkenness

Mubashar Choudry, a 53-year-old Pakistani native and Maryland physician, was arrested this week for drunken and disorderly conduct aboard a US Airways flight from Charlotte, North Carolina to Daytona Beach, Florida. On the flight, a young woman caught Chourdry’s beer-goggled eyes. Choudry proceeded to verbally harass the woman, using such sexually explicit phrases that mothers and their children asked to move seats. The flight crew tried to control Choudry, who then became belligerent. Upon landing in Florida, Choudry was charged with disorderly intoxication.

Unsafe Safety Rope?

On Monday, a rock climber’s thumb was severed by a safety rope at Yosemite National Park on Wednesday while climbing the 7,569 feet-high El Capitan mountain. The man’s thumb was severed when the lead climber fell, putting so much pressure on the safety rope wrapped around the man’s thumb that it actually severed the digit. The severed thumb fell onto a ledge, where it was retrieved by his climbing partner. The Park used safety rope in a “short haul” helicopter rescue technique that retrieved the climbers from the ledge. Surgeons at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco were able to reattach the thumb.

L Word Lockout

Image Credit: Clea DuVall. Via wikimedia commons

Leisha Hailey, best known for playing Alice Pieszche on Showtime’s now defunct “L Word” show, has gone to the press after being kicked off a Southwest flight for kissing her girlfriend, Camilla Grey. Flying from Baltimore to St. Louis, Hailey locked lips with Grey. Upon landing, Haley and Grey were escorted off the flight for inappropriate behavior. Hailey and Grey then took their cause to twitter claiming that Southwest discriminated against the couple, whose kissing was not okay on “a ‘family airline.” The length and intensity of the kiss is currently being debated on Twitter and online statements. The women claim to have engaged in “one modest kiss.” Southwest, who it is worth noting is the official carrier of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), released a statement that there were “reports of what customers characterize as an excessive public display of affection,” and the women were removed after they “responded to flight attendants with profane language.” Southwest has a growing history of celebrity evictions. After incidents with Kevin Smith’s girth and Billy Joe Armstrong’s sagging pants, Southwest would seem to only accept thin, straight customers who sport high-waisted attire.

Armrest Wrestling won last week’s Icarus Award. Check out past winners in our Icarus Award section. And vote here for this week’s most worthy contender:

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By Lily J Kosner for PeterGreenberg.com

Feature image credit Golden Wings Of Icarus – photo via Flickr User debaird(tm)

Related links:  Daily Mail, MSNBC’s Overhead Bin, MSNBC, USA Today, ABC News