….or whatever the cruising altitude of the flight from D.C. to Denver was when a passenger reportedly joked about trying to light his shoe on fire after being busted for smoking in the airplane lavatory. The Associated Press reports:

An envoy from Qatar who authorities said grabbed a surreptitious smoke in a jetliner’s bathroom and then joked about lighting his shoe on fire, sparking a bomb scare and the scrambling of military jets, has been released from custody.

No explosives were found on the Washington-to-Denver flight. Authorities speaking on condition of anonymity said they don’t think the envoy was trying to hurt anyone during Wednesday’s scare and he will not be criminally charged.

Qatar’s U.S. ambassador, Ali Bin Fahad Al-Hajri, cautioned against a rush to judgment.

“This diplomat was traveling to Denver on official embassy business on my instructions, and he was certainly not engaged in any threatening activity,” he said in a statement on his Washington embassy’s Web site. “The facts will reveal that this was a mistake.”

Oh, yes. This certainly was a mistake.

Two mistakes, actually.

The first mistake was smoking on a non-smoking flight to start with (smokers on long flight can get testy when they nicfit…best to pack some nicotine patch or gum next time, eh?).

The second mistake… (more)

more here at Something to Say, the blog of former P-I editorial writer D. Parvaz