Airport X-ray missed carving knives

[Slats7]

Airport X-ray missed carving knives | The Courier-Mail

BARRY Padgett couldn't believe it when he absent-mindedly took three long, sharp cutting knives in his carry-on luggage bag and managed to get through airport security.

The 59-year-old from Labrador, on the Gold Coast, was flying home last Sunday on a Virgin Blue flight from Melbourne to Coolangatta Airport when he claims he "forgot" to check in his bags containing the sharp weapons.

I can't believe he didn't get picked up!

 

[Febs]

Not quite as malicious (though perhaps the TSA would disagree ) but I once got a 250mL bottle of water (full) through baggage scanners at LAX (of all places)!

I guess looking at thousands of bags each day, you're bound to miss the odd item.

Cheers,
- Febs.

 

[Slats7]

Not quite as malicious (though perhaps the TSA would disagree ) but I once got a 250mL bottle of water (full) through baggage scanners at LAX (of all places)!

I guess looking at thousands of bags each day, you're bound to miss the odd item.

Cheers,
- Febs.

You can't get them all!

 

[anat0l]

This has been done before - I think it was No News or other agency of the same calibre that did this as an experiment. Can't remember whether it was sharps, bomb-look-a-likes or LAGs that they were trying to smuggle, but they did it successfully and basically made a mockery of the airport security.

Luckily for that man (but rightfully in a way) they didn't throw the book at him when he was being honest about the lapse.

 

[drron]

1 week ago mrsdrron had a 500ml bottle of water go through both HKG and NRT without being picked up.

 

[anat0l]

For some reason I remember carting two or three untouched amenity kits in my backpack through SIN, SYD Intl transfer and AKL Intl transfer security points, but I didn't have to unpack the LAGs and put them into LAG bags. :shock:

 

[Flying Fox]

Someone I know was given a branded bottle opener (waiters friend style) as a corp gift. He brought it through security without any problems.

I checked the sign at security (which I don't normally read) and it explicitly said no bottle openers allowed.

I guess that these things happen.

I always used to fly with a pocket knife in my hand luggage (for convenience) before the events of Sept 11 put an end to it.

 

[medhead]

not really a surprise at all. This is a planar x-ray, things can be easily missed depending on the orientation of the the object of interest to the direction of the x-ray beam. Or the presence of other dense objects. This is why laptops have to be removed, because they can mask things behind them.

Plus these screening x-rays also highlight items of interest (organics) in different colours. No doubt confusing.

 

[pyffii]

Going through Sydney international last month on the way to Munich via Hong Kong and London, security picked up my fish oil capsules and said they were over the 100ml limit !!!...Never had that happen before and even though the number of capsules were substantially reduced during the trip they were not detected on any of the other 14 sectors !!!...Go figure !!!

 

[abc12345678]

Got my leatherman through unknowingly last week PER-MEL, PER-PBO, KTA-PER.

Didn't realise it was in my hand luggage until I found it yesterday.

All domestic - but still expected it would get picked up. Obviously I'm pretty stoked not to loose it.

 

[ethernet]

I advise carrying a SA Envelope with stamps so you can post accidents like these.

If the knives were similar to an aluminum foil wrapped chocolate bar, and had organic next to them this could do it. However a mode toggle should have caught them, meaning skimping and making staff work too hard is introducing human factors.

As for water bottles getting through, some of the better detectors/software now show them as water and do not paint red borders around them. On the minus side, some are trained to pick up drugs and such. This expanded 'duty' means less time on the pointy stuff.

To keep the x-ray inspectors on their toes, some machines falsely superimpose , occasionally, guns, knives and contraband. Nice concept, except that it HAS caused huge problems.

 

[JohnK]

They are only human beings and can sometimes make mistakes....