[lidarman]

On a short trip this weekend to visit family, my flight gets cancelled, and switched around, yadda, yadda, yadda. I kill time by getting the Bike mag I saw at one of those little newstands.

I spend my next hour reading the articles and laugh at one in particular regarding an incident where this guy gets his small phillips screwdriver taken from him by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at the airport screening.

What a coincidence, on my way back, I get stopped by TSA too. "We need to search your bag, it appears there is a small allen wrench in your pack." I'm going "you're kidding, right? It's only two inches long." "Sir, it falls under the list as an ice pick," states the TSA agent.

Sure enough, I left not an allen key, but it's an avid star key! Probably as dangerous as my car keys and maybe even as dangerous as some "allowed" items such as: knitting/crochet needles, corkscrews and nail files.

I didn't argue though, I was too tired and just wanted to get home. Besides, it's illegal for me to bring it there and if they wanted to they could criminally prosecute me for it. Yikes!

 

[Call_me_Clyde]

You're screwed

Now you're on the list of suspected terrorists and won't be able to fly anywhere without extensive interrogations by airport security about how many Cat Stevens albums you own, or wether or not your home PC's internet cache will yield visits to web sites showing how to make shoe bombs.

I hope you like travelling by rail, dude....

Clyde

 

[dave54]

That's real comforting.

I have enough metal in my body to build an SUV and I set those alarms off every time. I just tell the attendant I have a prosthetic leg and they wave me through with just a cursory pat down.


But another time I was flying out with a friend who works in construction. We had carefully made sure we had no contraband items but he still got whisked away into a side room with an armed guard while they completely disassembled his luggage. It seems while on the job the previous week he used his pickup to haul some explosives about 200 yards across the project site. When he threw his suitcase into the pickup bed to leave for the airport it picked up just enough week old explosive residue to trigger the sniffer on the luggage conveyor belt.

 

[JohnnyTooBad]

That's real comforting.

I have enough metal in my body to build an SUV and I set those alarms off every time. I just tell the attendant I have a prosthetic leg and they wave me through with just a cursory pat down.

But another time I was flying out with a friend who works in construction. We had carefully made sure we had no contraband items but he still got whisked away into a side room with an armed guard while they completely disassembled his luggage. It seems while on the job the previous week he used his pickup to haul some explosives about 200 yards across the project site. When he threw his suitcase into the pickup bed to leave for the airport it picked up just enough week old explosive residue to trigger the sniffer on the luggage conveyor belt.

It doesn't take much. I went skiing at Silverton, CO in Feb for two days, then 2 days at Telluride. They were doing a lot of avi control at Silverton, although I never skied within about 50 yards of a bomb crater. But on the way out, the TSA guy at the Montrose airport detected black powder on my ski's hard case (ski tube). They just asked me a bunch of questions as they filled out a piece of paper, then sent me on my way. I was a bit nervous, knowing my final destination was one of the Washington DC airports. I figured they'd have some dude in dark glasses with an earpiece sitting next to me on the flight from Denver to Dulles, but it didn't happen.

As for banned items, my wife got an expensive pair of scissors confiscated in the Denver airport (why she put them in her carry-on is beyond me), but they allowed us to take them to the post office inside the airport and mail them home.

 

[heatstroke]

hey my 2 year old is on the do not fly list.

 

[mrwizard]

hey my 2 year old is on the do not fly list.

Hey, mine too! I told my wife it was a mistake to name him Anwar Al-Sadat.

 

[grundy]

"We need to search your bag, it appears there is a small allen wrench in your pack."

you too? this past weekend, two of my friends were searched and lost their multi-tools because of the allen wrenches. one of them also had to give up a nice park Y allen key.

silly.

 

[lidarman]

I can see how someone could use a small tool to injure someone like poke their eye out, but to conceive that someone could hijack a plane using a small tool is laughable.

"Alright everyone, we are taking over this plane. Stay in your seats or I will poke this flight attendents eye out with this allen key"

That would surely subdue the passengers and force the pilots to open the door to the cockpit.

 

[Picard]

shaving kit ?

Did TSA confiscated your shaving kit ( razor, shaving cream) ? I travelled to the US with shaving kit and it was confiscated. I end up buyng new razor, shaving cream, nail clipper, tweezer.

 

[Hello Kitty]

I didn't argue though, I was too tired and just wanted to get home. Besides, it's illegal for me to bring it there and if they wanted to they could criminally prosecute me for it. Yikes!

I was returning home on a flight from Vegas. Horrible airport to fly through. For some stupid reason I put my egg beater pedals in my carry on baggage. I was in a twenty-mile line through x-ray -- late, along with thirty thousand other people -- to my gate. So my bag comes under the monitor and the TSA genuises can't make heads or tails of the metal spikey things in their monitor. Think it's a couple of grenades or something. I tell them, "They're pedals, please, open the bag and find out for yourself." Evidently they can't do that for some reason. They just keep calling people over and looking at the computer monitor. After ten minutes of this they wave me through without opening the bag to check a thing and asking me no questions. I believe it was because the line was too freaking long.

Then, last month I was flying back from Atlanta. My flight gets cancelled due to a broken windshield on the plane. Weather's coming in and there's no flights back to Denver. My luggage is already on board. I need to find a hotel. Some newbie gate girl goes ON BOARD the plane and retrieves my bag for me. Unbeknownst to me, and her evidently, this is a huge security breach. By rule the whole friggin' airport is supposed to be shut down and re-screened because an unscreened piece of luggage is loose in the aiport. The manager's freaking out. The gate girl is in tears. Anywho, they just put my bag back on board, turned the other cheek, and me and all my security-breached luggage ended up getting a flight out that night on another plane.

So, personally, as a person who has to fly often and so frequently dismayed at the ineptitude of ATS and airport security, I'd be tickled to donate an eight dollar bike tool to the cause once in a while.

EDIT: BTW, current thinking is that the new goal is to build a bomb on board. Perhaps tools like the one you lost are more suspect than knitting needles or car keys for that reason. Just a thought ...

 

[daveM]

Whew! I thought that they took your...

'Undertow' CD. They might think that you could threaten someone with 'Prison Sex'

 

[Kronk]

Intersting... I know someone who had a pen/pencil set he got for a gift from work probaly 10 years ago.
He traveled with it in his pocket protector frequently (computer programmer), prior to 2001 and until recently. Metal bodies on both the pen and pencil...easily better as a weapon than an allen wrench.

Over the winter he had to replace the ink cartidge.
Seems there is a letter opening knife under the pen top he had forgotten all about. Never raised a question on any screening.
He quit taking it anyway...no need to be hassled.

 

[Atomik Carbon]

It's another George Bush Conspiracy

I heard from an un-named source that Ol George and Craftsman, Snap On and all the other US tool companies got together and decided to confiscate all these tools in order to drive up their sales ;-).

Hell I lost a 14mm pedal wrench the other day. I came so close to asking if they thought I was going to disassemble the plane or something, probably would have considered that a threat.

Later Mon.

 

[supcom]

You could have taken the tool over to your airline counter and asked them for a small box to check the item as baggage. A coworker did that with a pocket knife once. No problem.

 

[Trevor!]

Like the photo. It turned out great. Don't know if thats your intention, but it looks good all the same.

 

[MysticFalcon]

Comming back from texas a couple months ago they strip searched and probed my grandmother because they thought she had something hidden up her ass due to her fake hip setting off the metal detector. then to top it all off out whole group of me my parents and grandparents lugage got searched and rather than unzipping them they cut them open. cut up a bunch of my souvener t-shirts in the process. then the just put them all in plastic bags. when we got home my bag was first suitcase + clothes in a big plastic bag came down the chute and all my stuff like dirty laundry etc exploded all over the airport. I caught the rest of the familys stuff so it wouldnt happen again but it still scatered my dirty undies all over. im going to tenesee in a month and plan to drive. im done with flying.

 

[trailrash]

Comming back from texas a couple months ago they strip searched and probed my grandmother because they thought she had something hidden up her ass due to her fake hip setting off the metal detector. then to top it all off out whole group of me my parents and grandparents lugage got searched and rather than unzipping them they cut them open. cut up a bunch of my souvener t-shirts in the process. then the just put them all in plastic bags. when we got home my bag was first suitcase + clothes in a big plastic bag came down the chute and all my stuff like dirty laundry etc exploded all over the airport. I caught the rest of the familys stuff so it wouldnt happen again but it still scatered my dirty undies all over. im going to tenesee in a month and plan to drive. im done with flying.

The next time you want to lie, at least try to make it believable.

 

[MysticFalcon]

The next time you want to lie, at least try to make it believable.

I wish I was. Why would I take the time to type that all out just to be full of ****. if I had adigicam Id show you pics of a bunch of suitcases that have all been cut open in an X on the front.

 

[lidarman]

The next time you want to lie, at least try to make it believable.

I think they call it "over-embellishing"

His grandma probably embellished too!

 

[*rt*]

on my way back from GITA last fall TSA threatened to take my whole set of allen wrenches. i'd forgotten to pack them in my bike case and without thinking just threw them into my carry-on. needless to say i got pulled out of the security line and my bag was searched. fortunately the TSA guy took pity on me and escorted me back to the front counter to check my carry-on and then let me jump to the front of the security line. still i was the last person to get on my flight before they closed the doors!!

you never know when i might decide to 8mm wrench someone to death! (on the other hand, better safe than sorry).

rt