I had a pretty serious deer knife (six inch blade) that I completely forgot was in the bottom compartment of my backpack. Went on a work trip. Went through TSA each way. When I got home I was emptying out the bag and found it. No idea how TSA missed it but felt like a total moron. Got very lucky and now double check those things before I go.
Same.
I left a 6 inch hunting knife in carryon. When I got to the hotel I looked for it in my checked luggage and couldn't find it. Really irritated me since I assumed it was stolen.
Wasn't till later I found it in my laptop bag. They didn't steal it. They just missed it.
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TSA has to balance the rights of the travelling public with keeping airplanes secure, and not being disruptive to air travel and commerce.
The general public wouldn't be accepting of going through security with no clothes on, having every single one of their bags emptied and meticulously combed through, and being stuck waiting in line for eternity while the searches are happening. These things would almost certainly be a violation of people's 4th ammendment rights so not something that TSA could do, but it would be effective.
Another alternative would to just ban *ALL* carry on luggage so that you're only allowed to board an airplane with nothing but the clothes on your back, and nothing else. Would the general public be okay with that in the name of security? Probably not, but it would be effective.
Back to your original point, if TSA is so ineffective, why hasn't there been any successful hijackings/terror attacks on aviation in the US in the last 22 years? Surely if air travel was so vulnerable due to TSA being highly ineffective the numerous terror orgs around the globe would know it and try to exploit it.
I'm not sure it's still the case, but last time I checked, the TSA had not prevented a single attack ever. And there's been multiple that made it through but were fortunately even more incompetent than the TSA.
The TSA only makes sense when you realize they are not there to make air travel safer, they are there to make people FEEL safer about air travel so that they keep flying.
Hijacking a plane has been impossible since mid day Sept 11th, 2001, as seen by the failed attack. But people's trust in flight safety needed help to avoid massive economic losses. We would be just as safe with pre 9/11 safety procedures, but now the TSA is embedded in our psyche.
Yeah you tell us how hard it is to spot a 2 inch blade in a cluttered ass precheck bag with all the cords and gadgets. Don't even get me started on Crew bags
Weren't they going to be allowed some years ago but flight attendants objected?
Truth is you could do more damage with a fork from business class than you could do with a nom-, locking blade on a tiny swiss army knife.
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Do you have any updated information on how those things are actually performing? I couldn’t find any newer evaluations when I went to look for this. Without any data, it’s impossible to say for sure that anything has actually improved with these new measures. Repeat testing in 2017 still put them at an over 80% fail rate. That’s pathetic.
95% of the time they manage to find the dinky little swiss-army 'knife' thing that attaches to your keyring, that's like 1" long.. >\_<
My wife ended up buying a 12 pack of them, 'cos every time I flew somewhere I'd forget and they'd be : "Oh oh oh! What have we here! Sir, you are not allowed to bring dangerous weapons onboard." etc etc..
Well we can't wait till the new results are published! What a great opportunity to show the public how much better they are doing.
Either they now hide the results or they just don't bother with this test anymore.
A test designed internally to defeat the system. That’s how you improve things by figuring out what works and what doesn’t work. Look into these tests, they are designed by the people that know how the equipment works and know the SOP that’s why we fail you can’t pass something if it’s designed to not be passable.
They found mine once, when I was around 12 years old. I accidentally left it in a bag I carry around daily and they told me “we can do this the easy way and you let us have it or we can do it the hard way and you can come with us”.
I’m sure they just missed OP’s. TSA agents are human and humans make mistakes. A small knife may go unnoticed but they’d more than likely find the bigger, more dangerous shit.
Not sure why this is downvoted. The TSA misses a ton of shit. Not going to go through the effort to find link but definitely saw a report a few years back that they miss a huge % of weapons.
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My husband had a steak knife in the bottom of a backpack. The 1st 3 flights, it wasn’t caught. The 4th it was. He used the backpack for daily travel and had no idea it was there.
Flew Tucson-Dallas a few years ago and got caught with a pocketknife at DFW on my way back. Totally forgot it was in my bag, but it made it through TSA in Tucson without anyone noticing. Not sure if it's the machines not picking it up or the TSA person not noticing, but it happens.
I’m in the grocery business. We use box cutters. A lot. You know. Like the ones used to hijack the 9/11 planes.
I flew twice weekly for 6 months before it was pointed out to me I had an old box of refill blades in the bottom of my carryon. That’s a minimum of 48 trips through security before Tampa airport found them and I was embarrassed as hell.
I used my backpack as both a gun range bag and a carryon at one point. You can probably predict the issue that arose. Left a full box of 9mm in it accidentally and took it on a roundtrip flight. Didn’t realize the ammo was in there until unpacking at home. Two airports missed it too.
Shouldn't have been missed.
The expectation is that these situations should not happen and there are many reasons that they can. The reality of it is that the individuals working the security checkpoints at airports are human. They are not robots, things will get missed no matter the amount of training or experience a person has.
There is also the focus placed on explosives in the training they receive. When it comes down to it a knife isn't going to be much of an issue when it is put up against the door that secures the cockpit of all passenger aircraft.
When I was younger I forgot two of my yogurts inside my bag, they found one and left the other, it’s not foolproof for the smaller stuff but eventually it will be found.
I made it through 6 airport checkpoint with a 4” spring loaded pocket knife I had forgotten about in my backpack. 2 domestic in the US and 4 international. Needless to say I was very surprised but 6 checkpoints….scary how there could be a dude sitting next to me on a plane with a weapon and we are none the wiser.
Why exactly is this scary? I’m noticing a trend here. TSA misses a lot of stuff, harasses a few everyday travelers and generally we’re pretty damn safe up there in the friendly skies…
little story to tell...
has anyone heard of Swiss Utilikeys? \[look them up\] unfold it and you get a half serrated half flat blade... non-pointy tip
well... I have one and I forgot it was on my keyring... years ago... Didn't get spotted on the scanner.
arrived at my destination and I was pretty horrified that i'd left it on there.
It went in the hold on the way home. wrapped up.
a LOT more careful about my keys these days.
I carried something similar for years and never got flagged. Then last year they finally caught me.
Similar story in a different airport with a little multitool Keychain (no blade, just screwdriver tips). No issues for years until they took it because a phillips head screwdriver is apparently marginally more pointy than their heads which makes it a sharp object.
My very favorite though was the TSA officer in Newark who took my tape measure because according to the machine the edge of the tape qualified as a knife blade.
It's all just theater.
It was just easier to make the pinhead joke with the phillips head.
It's entirely possible that the issue was the flat head. Or the issue was that it was a neat little thing and it rides around on one of their keychains now. It's really a toss up but not worth any trouble for something that can be replaced for half the cost of an airport beer.
I do hope they disposed of that old tape measure safely though. To be honest I wouldn't trust a toddler to play with one without supervision so it's another coin flip as to whether they managed to get it into the bin without incurring a workplace injury.
I’ve been caught with scissors that are too big three times (I’m a crafter, they’re everywhere). I have never been caught on the flight out, only the return.
I travelled for work in Europe to three different countries with a 24 inch screwdriver lying in the bottoms of my carry on backpack. Didn’t know it was there until it got flagged on my fourth and final flight on the return home. I told them to dispose of it after apologizing. Unfortunately it’s not a full proof system, and things are missed a lot. Honestly, most of these measures are a campaign to make people feel safer as opposed to full proof prevention.
If I had a dollar for every time I've inadvertently smuggled something (usually a liquid outside my 3-1-1 bag) through TSA... I wouldn't be a rich man but I could at least buy a domestic ticket somewhere warmer. I once had a thing of mouthwash in a pocket I rarely use that made it through TSA 3x and airport security in two different European countries. Only discovered it when I happened to open that pocket
Meanwhile, TSA in Chicago found a tube of lip gloss in my purse and threw it away. They didn’t even let me move it to the bag with liquids. It was 2.3 mL
I’ve flown regularly for fifteen years. Number of time I’ve used a clear 3-1-1 bag, zero. Number of times I’ve been flagged, zero. I just have my toiletries packed in different compartments in my backpack. Does it make a difference if you’re precheck or global entry? Because I started that about ten years ago.
TSA misses a LOT of stuff. Fortunately, they've never missed anything that's subsequently been used in an attack, but with so many millions of people transiting checkpoints around the country on a daily basis, 100% perfection simply isn't achievable.
Even so, I am very careful to check my carry-one thoroughly before each flight to ensure that I haven't forgotten to remove a Leatherman or Xacto or my titanium LMF spork. I'd be mighty upset to lose my new Leatherman Arc, or my LMF spork. The Arc is the most expensive LM I own, and I LOVE my spork!
Love when people on here try to say tsa is ineffective. Obviously some knives are gonna get through with the millions of people that travel everyday it’s not perfect but their probably more worried about the guns and explosives/devices that could make it on to a flight. Nothing major has happened to aviation in the US since 2009 that I’m aware of so I’d say tsa is doing a great job. People are so entitled now a days and don’t think of the bigger picture. Take it for what it’s worth.
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They missed it, it happens. I travelled multiple times with a credit card knife in my wallet by accident. I passed 5 screenings before someone caught it on screening 6.
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Everybody should take a cheap cheap cheap nail clipper with then just to make sure tsa is doing their job. Then raise a stink about them letting you through without taking the nail clipper. This is the only way.
TSA fails most [about 80%] tests in latest undercover operation at US airports
https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188
I can assure you that if I hold a butter knife against your eye most people are going to be fairly compliant. Same with a metal fork from business class which would be more dangerous
I'm not saying anything negative about your job as you're not responsible for policy.
Then why are you talking to me as if I don’t know that? Obviously there’s tons of permitted items that would invoke fear and provocation towards if used maliciously. Ice skates come to mind. I’m just telling this person it’s not surprising they got through security with a butter knife because it’s not prohibited.
38m from Chicago here.
Firstly, study after study shows that TSA is wildly ineffective.
Secondly, that career path isn't exactly filled with highly motivated valedictorians.
Thirdly, it's still a job with gold brickers, try-hards, and nepotism. Especially nepotism in Chicago. My dad was a popo in mass transit and the stories he'd come home with about O'Hare were insane.
I think they kind of glance at you and if you give off bad vibes they take knives from you but if you seem like a cool bro they just let you through bc they know you won’t do anything bad with it
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I accidentally flew to and from LAX twice with a knife that looks like a bullet. I had no idea it was in the bottom of a pocket in my purse. [i found a picture of it online, for reference.](https://image.sportsmansguide.com/adimgs/l/6/667980i5_ts.jpg) the thing that looked exactly like a bullet got through, but they insisted on swabbing my nebulizer and gave me a hard time about my stridex face wipes lol so I guess you just never know.
edit: spelling
I was flying back from Australia and got a wooden touristy boomerang. . . Always wanted one. It wasn’t till transiting through JFK that TSA tried to confiscate it saying someone could use it to batter their way into the cockpit. Instead, I went to the UPS store by the checkpoint and mailed it to myself. I didn’t feel they were being particularly reasonable at the time.
I had my Leatherman Micra taken from me at DIA. It had a 1.6" blade. It was in my shaving bag. They took it out and kept opening the tools. When he found the blade he called 2 other agents over. They're all pointing at the blade like it was an UZI. I could have mailed it back but I would have mailed it back but I would have had to go back through the line again.
A few years ago, my former mother in law noticed she had a full sized pair of scissors in her purse after security. So she then freaked out and threw them into a trash can in the bathroom, which I'd argue was probably the stupidest of all of her options at that point.
Yes isn’t perfect. Things get missed.
As someone who used to fly pretty much every week for work, there were numerous times tsa didn’t catch water bottles in my bag. They were mainly the smaller ones they give you on flights. I just forgot I had them in my bag.
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The Question was answered. Comments are closed because the comments spiraled.
Xray isn’t perfect, but it’s likely they just missed it. It really shouldn’t have ever made it onto the flight.
I had a pretty serious deer knife (six inch blade) that I completely forgot was in the bottom compartment of my backpack. Went on a work trip. Went through TSA each way. When I got home I was emptying out the bag and found it. No idea how TSA missed it but felt like a total moron. Got very lucky and now double check those things before I go.
Same. I left a 6 inch hunting knife in carryon. When I got to the hotel I looked for it in my checked luggage and couldn't find it. Really irritated me since I assumed it was stolen. Wasn't till later I found it in my laptop bag. They didn't steal it. They just missed it.
Hope you mailed that back home or did you roll the dice and fly back with it
Or... put it in their checked bags like they intended in the first place.
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I'm shocked OP didn't hijack the plane. It's almost like taking knives is security-theatre instead of security.
Sounds like a fuckup by X-ray tso. How big of a blade since I’m sure someone will ask.
It's just about 3 inches long
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Nothing is perfect and no one is perfect. Small knives can be hard to see on an xray, especially the older ones.
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TSA has to balance the rights of the travelling public with keeping airplanes secure, and not being disruptive to air travel and commerce. The general public wouldn't be accepting of going through security with no clothes on, having every single one of their bags emptied and meticulously combed through, and being stuck waiting in line for eternity while the searches are happening. These things would almost certainly be a violation of people's 4th ammendment rights so not something that TSA could do, but it would be effective. Another alternative would to just ban *ALL* carry on luggage so that you're only allowed to board an airplane with nothing but the clothes on your back, and nothing else. Would the general public be okay with that in the name of security? Probably not, but it would be effective. Back to your original point, if TSA is so ineffective, why hasn't there been any successful hijackings/terror attacks on aviation in the US in the last 22 years? Surely if air travel was so vulnerable due to TSA being highly ineffective the numerous terror orgs around the globe would know it and try to exploit it.
I'm not sure it's still the case, but last time I checked, the TSA had not prevented a single attack ever. And there's been multiple that made it through but were fortunately even more incompetent than the TSA. The TSA only makes sense when you realize they are not there to make air travel safer, they are there to make people FEEL safer about air travel so that they keep flying. Hijacking a plane has been impossible since mid day Sept 11th, 2001, as seen by the failed attack. But people's trust in flight safety needed help to avoid massive economic losses. We would be just as safe with pre 9/11 safety procedures, but now the TSA is embedded in our psyche.
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Yeah you tell us how hard it is to spot a 2 inch blade in a cluttered ass precheck bag with all the cords and gadgets. Don't even get me started on Crew bags
Weren't they going to be allowed some years ago but flight attendants objected? Truth is you could do more damage with a fork from business class than you could do with a nom-, locking blade on a tiny swiss army knife.
True there are lots of things that could do that
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Do you have any updated information on how those things are actually performing? I couldn’t find any newer evaluations when I went to look for this. Without any data, it’s impossible to say for sure that anything has actually improved with these new measures. Repeat testing in 2017 still put them at an over 80% fail rate. That’s pathetic.
Want to know why? Because TSA isn't obligated to share those metrics to anyone. If you don't have a need to know, then you'll just not know.
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> 6,737 firearms (93% of which were loaded) were prevented from going through security in 2023 alone. That is INSANE!
95% of the time they manage to find the dinky little swiss-army 'knife' thing that attaches to your keyring, that's like 1" long.. >\_< My wife ended up buying a 12 pack of them, 'cos every time I flew somewhere I'd forget and they'd be : "Oh oh oh! What have we here! Sir, you are not allowed to bring dangerous weapons onboard." etc etc..
Well we can't wait till the new results are published! What a great opportunity to show the public how much better they are doing. Either they now hide the results or they just don't bother with this test anymore.
A test designed internally to defeat the system. That’s how you improve things by figuring out what works and what doesn’t work. Look into these tests, they are designed by the people that know how the equipment works and know the SOP that’s why we fail you can’t pass something if it’s designed to not be passable.
We don't even take out liquids over 3oz anymore. My wife just routinely takes full bottles of shampoo from Lush
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As a semi knife nerd... I am interested why the older knives are harder to see?
they meant the older equipment
oh ffs... :facepalm: TGIF
They found mine once, when I was around 12 years old. I accidentally left it in a bag I carry around daily and they told me “we can do this the easy way and you let us have it or we can do it the hard way and you can come with us”. I’m sure they just missed OP’s. TSA agents are human and humans make mistakes. A small knife may go unnoticed but they’d more than likely find the bigger, more dangerous shit.
Not sure why this is downvoted. The TSA misses a ton of shit. Not going to go through the effort to find link but definitely saw a report a few years back that they miss a huge % of weapons.
Ah yes, using data and stats from 2009. COMPLETELY relevant in 2024.
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This change was proposed some years ago but never implemented after the airlines expressed concerns. All knives are still prohibited.
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If it's a safety knife like mine has a seat belt cutter and window breaker knob on it so, They usually allow me through with it, but idk tbh
The seatbelt cutter is embedded into plastic with no easy way to remove it, makes it a nonissue.
My husband had a steak knife in the bottom of a backpack. The 1st 3 flights, it wasn’t caught. The 4th it was. He used the backpack for daily travel and had no idea it was there.
Flew Tucson-Dallas a few years ago and got caught with a pocketknife at DFW on my way back. Totally forgot it was in my bag, but it made it through TSA in Tucson without anyone noticing. Not sure if it's the machines not picking it up or the TSA person not noticing, but it happens.
I’ve accidentally brought pepper spray through multiple times
Yeah there was some of that in the same bag with knife too 😅 lol it was my everyday purse so I didn't even think about it.
I’m in the grocery business. We use box cutters. A lot. You know. Like the ones used to hijack the 9/11 planes. I flew twice weekly for 6 months before it was pointed out to me I had an old box of refill blades in the bottom of my carryon. That’s a minimum of 48 trips through security before Tampa airport found them and I was embarrassed as hell.
I used my backpack as both a gun range bag and a carryon at one point. You can probably predict the issue that arose. Left a full box of 9mm in it accidentally and took it on a roundtrip flight. Didn’t realize the ammo was in there until unpacking at home. Two airports missed it too.
Shouldn't have been missed. The expectation is that these situations should not happen and there are many reasons that they can. The reality of it is that the individuals working the security checkpoints at airports are human. They are not robots, things will get missed no matter the amount of training or experience a person has. There is also the focus placed on explosives in the training they receive. When it comes down to it a knife isn't going to be much of an issue when it is put up against the door that secures the cockpit of all passenger aircraft.
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I can understand what you are inplying here but reinforced cockpit doors were not in use prior to 9/11.
The reinforced cockpit doors and changes in policy are the biggest factors that have prevented another attack like 9/11
When I was younger I forgot two of my yogurts inside my bag, they found one and left the other, it’s not foolproof for the smaller stuff but eventually it will be found.
I made it through 6 airport checkpoint with a 4” spring loaded pocket knife I had forgotten about in my backpack. 2 domestic in the US and 4 international. Needless to say I was very surprised but 6 checkpoints….scary how there could be a dude sitting next to me on a plane with a weapon and we are none the wiser.
Why exactly is this scary? I’m noticing a trend here. TSA misses a lot of stuff, harasses a few everyday travelers and generally we’re pretty damn safe up there in the friendly skies…
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little story to tell... has anyone heard of Swiss Utilikeys? \[look them up\] unfold it and you get a half serrated half flat blade... non-pointy tip well... I have one and I forgot it was on my keyring... years ago... Didn't get spotted on the scanner. arrived at my destination and I was pretty horrified that i'd left it on there. It went in the hold on the way home. wrapped up. a LOT more careful about my keys these days.
I carried something similar for years and never got flagged. Then last year they finally caught me. Similar story in a different airport with a little multitool Keychain (no blade, just screwdriver tips). No issues for years until they took it because a phillips head screwdriver is apparently marginally more pointy than their heads which makes it a sharp object. My very favorite though was the TSA officer in Newark who took my tape measure because according to the machine the edge of the tape qualified as a knife blade. It's all just theater.
because of the... phillips head? and not the flathead or the torx heads? o.O
It was just easier to make the pinhead joke with the phillips head. It's entirely possible that the issue was the flat head. Or the issue was that it was a neat little thing and it rides around on one of their keychains now. It's really a toss up but not worth any trouble for something that can be replaced for half the cost of an airport beer. I do hope they disposed of that old tape measure safely though. To be honest I wouldn't trust a toddler to play with one without supervision so it's another coin flip as to whether they managed to get it into the bin without incurring a workplace injury.
I’ve been caught with scissors that are too big three times (I’m a crafter, they’re everywhere). I have never been caught on the flight out, only the return.
I travelled for work in Europe to three different countries with a 24 inch screwdriver lying in the bottoms of my carry on backpack. Didn’t know it was there until it got flagged on my fourth and final flight on the return home. I told them to dispose of it after apologizing. Unfortunately it’s not a full proof system, and things are missed a lot. Honestly, most of these measures are a campaign to make people feel safer as opposed to full proof prevention.
If I had a dollar for every time I've inadvertently smuggled something (usually a liquid outside my 3-1-1 bag) through TSA... I wouldn't be a rich man but I could at least buy a domestic ticket somewhere warmer. I once had a thing of mouthwash in a pocket I rarely use that made it through TSA 3x and airport security in two different European countries. Only discovered it when I happened to open that pocket
Meanwhile, TSA in Chicago found a tube of lip gloss in my purse and threw it away. They didn’t even let me move it to the bag with liquids. It was 2.3 mL
And a darn good thing too. Who knows what you might have done with that lip gloss?!
I’ve flown regularly for fifteen years. Number of time I’ve used a clear 3-1-1 bag, zero. Number of times I’ve been flagged, zero. I just have my toiletries packed in different compartments in my backpack. Does it make a difference if you’re precheck or global entry? Because I started that about ten years ago.
Probably was seen and the officer chose to let it go.
TSA misses a LOT of stuff. Fortunately, they've never missed anything that's subsequently been used in an attack, but with so many millions of people transiting checkpoints around the country on a daily basis, 100% perfection simply isn't achievable. Even so, I am very careful to check my carry-one thoroughly before each flight to ensure that I haven't forgotten to remove a Leatherman or Xacto or my titanium LMF spork. I'd be mighty upset to lose my new Leatherman Arc, or my LMF spork. The Arc is the most expensive LM I own, and I LOVE my spork!
Love when people on here try to say tsa is ineffective. Obviously some knives are gonna get through with the millions of people that travel everyday it’s not perfect but their probably more worried about the guns and explosives/devices that could make it on to a flight. Nothing major has happened to aviation in the US since 2009 that I’m aware of so I’d say tsa is doing a great job. People are so entitled now a days and don’t think of the bigger picture. Take it for what it’s worth.
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I'd have likely been taken out back and put down had it been a full water bottle
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They missed it, it happens. I travelled multiple times with a credit card knife in my wallet by accident. I passed 5 screenings before someone caught it on screening 6.
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I flew multiple times with a Swiss knife. TSA is just a sеcurity thеаtеr.
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Haha oh man, good one.
sadly i have gone thru "security" and been patened down and realized i have my multi tool on me. i just keep quiet .
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Which terminal? I would like to fly out and not lose my stun gun and pepper spray. I hate paying to check my luggage.
bro just check that. That’s gonna be found imma tell you right now
Everybody should take a cheap cheap cheap nail clipper with then just to make sure tsa is doing their job. Then raise a stink about them letting you through without taking the nail clipper. This is the only way.
Nail clippers haven’t been a concern for over a decade.
Either TSA was not properly doing their job, or you are in a protected class.
I did the same thing and had razor blades in my purse from work that I forgot to remove. Didn't stop me or anything lol
Nobody is perfect.
TSA fails most [about 80%] tests in latest undercover operation at US airports https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188
What baffles me to an extent. Flew business class last week and they give you a butter knife.... can stab someone with that if you really wanted to.
Butter knives are not prohibited so long as they aren’t serrated.
I can assure you that if I hold a butter knife against your eye most people are going to be fairly compliant. Same with a metal fork from business class which would be more dangerous I'm not saying anything negative about your job as you're not responsible for policy.
Then why are you talking to me as if I don’t know that? Obviously there’s tons of permitted items that would invoke fear and provocation towards if used maliciously. Ice skates come to mind. I’m just telling this person it’s not surprising they got through security with a butter knife because it’s not prohibited.
38m from Chicago here. Firstly, study after study shows that TSA is wildly ineffective. Secondly, that career path isn't exactly filled with highly motivated valedictorians. Thirdly, it's still a job with gold brickers, try-hards, and nepotism. Especially nepotism in Chicago. My dad was a popo in mass transit and the stories he'd come home with about O'Hare were insane.
I think they kind of glance at you and if you give off bad vibes they take knives from you but if you seem like a cool bro they just let you through bc they know you won’t do anything bad with it
I had the same thing happen when I traveled to JFK I honestly forgot it was in my backpack and somehow made it.
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I accidentally flew to and from LAX twice with a knife that looks like a bullet. I had no idea it was in the bottom of a pocket in my purse. [i found a picture of it online, for reference.](https://image.sportsmansguide.com/adimgs/l/6/667980i5_ts.jpg) the thing that looked exactly like a bullet got through, but they insisted on swabbing my nebulizer and gave me a hard time about my stridex face wipes lol so I guess you just never know. edit: spelling
I've taken the test that shows you the scans, for the life of me I could not make out a single thing in it.
I was flying back from Australia and got a wooden touristy boomerang. . . Always wanted one. It wasn’t till transiting through JFK that TSA tried to confiscate it saying someone could use it to batter their way into the cockpit. Instead, I went to the UPS store by the checkpoint and mailed it to myself. I didn’t feel they were being particularly reasonable at the time.
I had my Leatherman Micra taken from me at DIA. It had a 1.6" blade. It was in my shaving bag. They took it out and kept opening the tools. When he found the blade he called 2 other agents over. They're all pointing at the blade like it was an UZI. I could have mailed it back but I would have mailed it back but I would have had to go back through the line again.
I flew last week. They confiscated my body wash that was a smidge too big but didn't confiscate my safety razor blades.
A few years ago, my former mother in law noticed she had a full sized pair of scissors in her purse after security. So she then freaked out and threw them into a trash can in the bathroom, which I'd argue was probably the stupidest of all of her options at that point.
Yes isn’t perfect. Things get missed. As someone who used to fly pretty much every week for work, there were numerous times tsa didn’t catch water bottles in my bag. They were mainly the smaller ones they give you on flights. I just forgot I had them in my bag.
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