Airport Security Tales

[squishles10]

^^^ That is hilarious. Did said customs agent know how an elevator works?

 

[Dleg]

I am a regular on the Special Screening lines at the airports. :true: I think it is because my blonde hair and my blue eyes.

:Locolaugh:

 

[frazil]

We went to visit my wife's relatives in Missouri last summer, and bought some homemade lye soap from some Amish people. It got flagged at the airport, and we had a big hassle explaining what it was. Ultimately, they let us on with it. I made a bunch of jokes about Amish terrorists, but then I thought about it, and isn't lye soap some sort of petroleum product? Maybe it could be used by a terrorist. Anyway, it was funny.

Lye soap is made from animal fats and lye. Every other bar of soap you buy at the grocery store is a petroleum product.

(sorry, probably belongs in the random thread)

 

[MA_PE]

this was before 9/11 I was going through the typical screening and had a seismograph that used light sensitive paper as a recording medium and I had a spare roll in a sealed Kodak box.

Security: What's this?

Me: Light-sensitive paper for a scientific instrument.

Sec: I need to open the box.

Me: you can't do that it's light sensitive, if you open it in daylight it's no good anymore.

Sec. Well, I need to open the box.

Me: If you want to open it in a closet or some other dark place fine, but you can't expose it to light or it's no good anymore.

After several more iterations she finally let me go, but not before she picked up one of my $1500 seismic accelerometers and while vigorously shaking the can next to her ear said "What's this?"

I said "that's probably a broken seismic accelerometer now." It was. Needed a $600 repair.

again before 9/11 I had a bunch of field equipment including a claw hammer. They said you can't carry that (hammer) on we need to check it. I was running late and said do whatever you need to do. They took out a cardboard box roughly 2-3 cu ft in size, taped the hammer to the bottom and checked it.

 

[FusionWhite]

My grandmother in Germany makes home made jelly. When my mom was visiting a few years ago she packed her bag with several jars of it. The security scan picked up the jars and they asked her to open her bag. My mom was worried they would take the jelly and not let her bring food into the US so she lied and said it was "face cream". They let her through no problem.

 

[Katiebug]

After several more iterations she finally let me go, but not before she picked up one of my $1500 seismic accelerometers and while vigorously shaking the can next to her ear said "What's this?"
I said "that's probably a broken seismic accelerometer now." It was. Needed a $600 repair.

I often travel to field sites with a Squadriga (a little 4-channel noise & vibration data aquisition frontend), a set of mics and accelerometers, and a binaural headset. Total value of all of this is approx. $20K and the TSA searches that bag EVERY time. They've made me take my accels out of their boxes (and then THEY put them back in the wrong ones, so the calibration cards get mixed up), they've dropped very expensive microphones and didn't understand why I got angry, and they've gone absolutely nutty over a simple cable with BNC connectors on the ends.

Oddly, they never seem to care about the tubes of super glue and adhesive wax that are in the outer pockets of the bag.

If I can get away with just bringing the Squadriga and the headset (I usually can), I stuff them in my laptop bag - TSA assumes the headset is a normal one for listening to music, and I've gotten away with saying the Squadriga is an external hard drive for my laptop. It's kind of accurate...

If I have to take the whole measurement kit with mics and accels, I'll DHL it to the local office a few days before my trip and have the regional field engineer or the mechanic pick it up for me. A few times of getting the bag past the TSA checkpoint taught me a very valuable lesson in that regard.

 

[rudy]

First week of October 2001 I flew home and did the following:
1. Bought the ticket 3 days in advance

2. Flew alone

3. Didn't check any luggage

I got checked at the following locations:

1. Ticket counter

2. Xray machine

3. Gate

4. Gate at layover location

I will never do that again. Next time I'll check an empty bag!

My dad used to get pulled aside for the "random" checks quite often. He would fly in with a one-way ticket, spend a few days, then we'd drive him home the following weekend. Sometimes, we'd drive over to visit him, and he would drive back with us. After a few days of visiting, he'd fly home using a one-way ticket. I got tired of seeing him being pulled aside that often. So, one time, I asked the check-in attendant why he kept getting pulled aside. She said that a one-way ticket is a red flag.

 

[FusionWhite]

The first time I flew after 9/11 a chick FLIPPED OUT after being pulled aside randomly. She said it was the second time it happened that day and completely lost it. To make a long story short she was taken away in handcuffs after getting rough with the screener.

 

[LionCE]

While flying back from Oakland last fall I noticed that I was the only one who spoke English without an accent at the security checkpoint. A couple of the TSA reps were wearing turbans and a couple burkas. I didn't feel really secure.

 

[squishles10]

My mom was worried they would take the jelly and not let her bring food into the US so she lied and said it was "face cream". They let her through no problem.

:appl:

 

[Mike in Gastonia]

I was actually on a plane when on 9/11 when the planes hit. I was on my way to Baltimore. Needless to say, we never made it. We turned around and flew back.

The first six months after 9/11, I was upgraded several times to first class by the flight attendants on the plane. I finally figured out what was going on. If they had available seats in first class they were upgrading the biggest guys on the plane thinking that we'd be between any hijackers and the cockpit.

The first time I flew after 9/11 (early October), two middle-eastern, bearded gentlemen boarded the plane wearing robes and turbins. There was lots of murmuring and grumbling from the other passengers, but I figured there was no problem as these guys were probably strip searched, x-rayed and evaluated like crazy.

 

[ODB_PE]

I was actually on a plane when on 9/11 when the planes hit. I was on my way to Baltimore. Needless to say, we never made it. We turned around and flew back.
The first six months after 9/11, I was upgraded several times to first class by the flight attendants on the plane. I fianlly figured out what was going on. If they had available seats in first class they were upgrading the biggest guys on the plane thinking that we'd be between any hijackers and the cockpit.

The first time I flew after 9/11 (early October), two middle-eastern bearded gentlemen boarded the plane wearing robes and turbins. There was lots of murmuring and grumbling from the other passengers, but I figured there was no problem as these guys were probably strip searched, x-rayed and evaluated like crazy.

I flew into JFK december 2001 - there was a middle eastern family on the plane. I was pretty ashamed of the way they were treated - seemed like everyone on the plane was glaring at them. One thing I'll always remember, though, was flying over a still smoldering (and amazingly lit up) ground zero at night in a completely silent plane.

 

[G-Loose]

An electrical engineer I used to work with would get the full TSA treatment every time he flew. He could not even check in online, he always had to go to the ticket counter. I asked him if he ever questioned it and he said it was because his name was too common. He could change his name but that would probably draw up another flag and then he would get the full cavity search.

 

[FusionWhite]

I had my bagged searched this week because I had samples of catalyst a vendor gave me. It wasnt too big of a hassle but it definately took some time for them to stare at the some ceramic blocks before figuring out they werent going to blow up.

 

[GCracker]

I got the full monty last month going to Bonaire because my underwater video housing has a chunk of lead on the bottom of it. The sucky part was the new bottle of sun screen I mistakenly put in my carry on was discovered and discarded during the search. :smileyballs:

 

[Freon]

In 2003, when I was coming back from my first Iraq tour I flew commericial. The international flight was easy. But when I changed planes and cleared customs in Chicago, things got interesting. No the TSA folks had no problem with the M-16 with gernade launcher, nor the pistol I had as checked luggage. They found "explosive residue" on some of my uniforms! The 350 pound female TSA screener must have hit the panic button, because I had a dozen TSA folks around me in a few seconds. Fortunatly, the leader of the mob, a grey-haired gentleman wearing "Captain" bars asked me a couple simple questions like; Where did you fly in from? (Showed him my orders and ID Card) Asked if I handled weapons, ammunition or explosives? (My answer was "Yes", and I pointed to the DoD gun case.) He sent me on my way. As I was leaving, I heard him lay into the screeners about being a bunch of brainless drones.

The moral of the story, TSA is not all that bad. At least the supervisors seem to be in touch with reality.

Freon

 

[TXengrChickPE]

My husband gets pulled aside for the special searches all the time. Most of the time his travel is last minute, he rarely checks luggage, and sometimes it's one-way. We also have an uncommon last name.

Most of the time, I don't mind the TSA guys... I know they are just trying to do their jobs... but, when my daughter was 3, we had a late night flight, so I put her in her pajamas, which included puffy Blues Clues slippers. They made her take them off! I didn't argue... but I thought it was ridiculous.

 

[AlaME]

I flew into Frankfurt a few years ago and was trying to change planes. I hadn't slept at all on the plane (an overnighter) and was very groggy. Going thru security, I forgot to take off my belt and my buckle set off the alarm in the metal detector. I was pulled off to the side where a guy with a wand is sweeping over me trying to find the offending metal. He hits my belt buckle and I said "thats my belt buckle". He said " We'll see about that" as he sticks his hand down the front of my pants! I wasn't groggy any more!!!

 

[Katiebug]

In 2003, when I was coming back from my first Iraq tour I flew commericial. The international flight was easy. But when I changed planes and cleared customs in Chicago, things got interesting. No the TSA folks had no problem with the M-16 with gernade launcher, nor the pistol I had as checked luggage. They found "explosive residue" on some of my uniforms! The 350 pound female TSA screener must have hit the panic button, because I had a dozen TSA folks around me in a few seconds. Fortunatly, the leader of the mob, a grey-haired gentleman wearing "Captain" bars asked me a couple simple questions like; Where did you fly in from? (Showed him my orders and ID Card) Asked if I handled weapons, ammunition or explosives? (My answer was "Yes", and I pointed to the DoD gun case.) He sent me on my way. As I was leaving, I heard him lay into the screeners about being a bunch of brainless drones.
The moral of the story, TSA is not all that bad. At least the supervisors seem to be in touch with reality.

Freon

My brother has issues with TSA. He hates flying out of airports with the puffer machine. The kid is a GUNNER'S MATE. His job is handling weapons, ammunition, and explosives all day long. The puffer or the ESD machine trips most of the time on him and/or his bag - and then they go nutty and swab his hands, call over the LEOs, etc. Doesn't matter if he's traveling on orders or explains what he does for a living...they freak out every time. He says it's so amusing when they fly home from deployment...a bunch of hung over guys in civvies, ALL of whom trip the puffer machine because they were handling weapons 12 hours prior. By the time TSA clears the 4th or 5th guy, they realize it's a whole team on their way home. And the TSA has to fill out a form with name, address, etc. for ALL of them who tripped the puffer machine.

When he has to fly armed (and in uniform) it makes the TSA (and usually other passengers) all kinds of nervous. He hates it. Fortunately it's rare that they have to do that. Once a federal air marshal went nutty and tried to prevent them from boarding the plane while armed, but the pilot was ex-Navy and said he'd prefer two armed servicemen on his flight (armed only because their weapons and ammunition was in the cargo bay) than that particular pair of air marshals. :laugh:

 

[Dleg]

I had an encounter with a real A-hole TSA employee at the Houston airport, after we got off our 11+ hour flight from Tokyo (and after three other flights just to get to Tokyo).

There was a guy in front of me in a pilot's uniform, but it looked just like the TSA uniform, so as I was unpacking the DVD player from one of our carry-ons I asked him "I do have to take this out, right?" and he said "No, I don't think so." So I put it back, and put the bag onto the rollers to go into the X-ray machine.

Then all of a sudden this TSA guy, who had been standing there the whole time, looking like he was ignoring me, literally yelled at me, shoved the bag back in my hand, sent me back to the other side and told me to take out the DVD player. Being really tired and somewhat grumpy, I said to him "I just asked someone if I should do that, and they said no"

The TSA guy then says "who, that guy?" pointing to the pilot, "That's a Pilot! You need to ask a TSA employee!!"

So, this TSA A-hole had obviously overheard the whole thing, was standing there doing nothing, and then just waited for the bag to go through so he could put on his little display of petty bureaucratic power.

Sorry guys - I have no sympathy for that kind of behavior. No excuses for that, IMO. Of course, I said nothing further, because the little prick probably wouldhave had me detained or something.