What to take on a plane and what to not? Security check at the airport can be an exasperating moment, but when you see things seized by TSA, you might feel slightly happier to walk through the x-ray machine. Some people go off-limits and threw unusual measures to take and censor, weird and infrequently officious inapt things on the plane. More than 2 million passengers are screened everyday by TSA by its highly trained workforce to ensure the safety of the traveling people. This is a list of such strange things revealed by The Transport Security Administration.
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10. Guns!
Guns! A lot of them! According to a report by TSA, in 2012, 821 firearms were confiscated out of which 621 were loaded. Many of them were hidden very creatively in potted plants, soft toys and clothes. Even a man was found with small chunks of C4 explosives in his luggage in Yuma, Arizona. TSA blog says that he was carrying it home to show to his family. A Grenade launcher was also found in the checked luggage of a man from Seattle, he kept it in his bag such that no one could see it there!
9. Snakes!
TSA agents on the security check found something wrong with a man and immediately asked him to empty his pockets, but he refused. His behavior made it clear to the agents that he had something dangerous in his pockets. In August 2011 this man was arrested at Miami International airport for carrying seven small snakes and three little tortoises. The tiny animals were taken by U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and the man was arrested. Snakes in the pockets. Creepy! Isn’t it?
8. Science project or bomb?
TSA agents are not certified to entirely hunt a device which they assume to be a bomb. FBI agents and explosive patrol, both were called to the scene when a college student was found with a science project, it looked like a bomb in the x-ray machine, during the security check at Omaha, Nebraska (OMA). The baggage area along with other terminals were sealed. After its verification to be a science project, airport was again opened and everything got back to normal. It had been a real tough day for the innocent adult.
7. Comb or Knife?
In Portland, when a man’s luggage went through the x-ray machine, an unchanging hairbrush was found to be a real prolonged blade which was hidden under the tip apportionment of the plastic. So what seemed like a regular accessory was indeed a treacherous dagger. Weapons and pointy things which could be harmful are not allowed on the plane, so better check your luggage before you enter the airport.
6. Breast Pumps
Once a woman was asked to go to the bathroom on the airport and fill the bottles of the breast pump with milk. This mother of a nine-month-old baby was carrying a breast pump with empty bottles on the plane and was stopped from boarding the craft by the TSA agents, for which they later apologized. But for no other reason, only because the bottles of the equipment were empty! Seriously embarrassing!
5. A Cannonball
TSA found an 18th-century potential explosive while checking the luggage of a diver. This man was carrying a coral-covered cannonball. He found it while exploring a ship near Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Bomb squad was also called and the whole baggage area was sealed. Poor diver!
4. Tactical Spike!
A man was stopped from boarding the plane in Pensacola, Florida (PNS), as a dangerous and nasty looking martial arts weapon called “tactical spike” was found under his socks during the security check, when he went through the body scanner. He claimed that he forgot that the weapon was there.
3. Live Eels!
In the luggage of a man, drifting out the Miami International Airport, components for his dream aquarium were found. There were live eels, corals, pleasant fish and invertebrates under required and suitable precautions. Although they were kept in a container filled with water, but they were in no approach secure from spillage during the transportation of live fish. The bag was confiscated immediately and was handed over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. Totally insane and absurd!
2. Bazooka Round!
A 100-foot perimeter was established by the Law Enforcement Officers around the item and the baggage area and terminals were also sealed when a man was found carrying a bazooka round in his luggage. He without any knowledge of the bazooka being live or inert was going to carry it on the plane at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.
1. Novelty Swords
It sounds really bizarre, when you imagine swords on the plane that too in a guitar case. In Salt Lake City, a man tried to carry and censor his new swords in a guitar carrier as if the x-ray machine would never detect his beautiful guitar. When asked by the TSA agents the man claimed to have no suspicion that the swords and other pointy things were authorized in lift on luggage and on plane. If one need to transport weapons, then why not to carry them by other safer means?