your view on a TSA situation

[cal99]

At my station, we had a pax that had a three inch double edged knife in his CHECKED BAG. TSA actually called police and confiscated the knife from the pax, causing the flight to be about 10min delayed.
The man was detained and questioned by police for half an hour.
What is your opinion on this situation........

[Derf]

A$$holes.... Carry on I understand but checked?

[tommyalf]

The inconsistency with airport security totally amazes me, it seems like whatever mood security is in dictates their decisions.

[assghanistan]

the problem with tsa is you have a bunch of people who lack common sense, and its not just the agents, it goes all the way to the top guys. why did they even bother with the knife in the checked bag? the only reason they search checked bags is for explosives and other dangerous goods, not illegal knives. the guy was going to Kuwait, for God's sake! I'm sure he actually had a good reason for taking it with him. Besides, it's not illegal to transport a so-called "dagger" in a checked bag, although it is illegal to transport it while it's on you or in your carry-on bag.
just another in the long list of tsa f**k ups!

[Airigami]

You guys are all missing the point. Of course it was a threat to national security. Mid-flight, the passenger, after eating his ommelette, sausages and cooked tomatoes, could have used his plastic knife to excavate the cabin floor, and then surrupticiously slipped into the baggage hold, found his suitcase, opened it, reclaimed his knife, and then gone to the galley to ask for a steak which he could more easily have negoitiated with a real knife. The steak could have then given him very bad indigestion, causing the flight to divert for a medical emergency to Havana. During re-fuelling, some Cuban secret agents could have hidden in the wheel bays and travelled unnoticed back into the U.S. and then led a coup against the government...

See - these TSA guys are actually really on the ball, predicting any eventuality... :P

[JeffinDEN]

It seems everyone likes to "Rag' on TSA these days. I for one appreciate the thankless work they do, and understand that the majority of these people take the job they do seriously. Some may go overboard, but in my opinion are the minority.

There could easily be another explanation. It is not impossible that the person carrying the knife is a known or suspected criminal or terrorist. Someone may have spotted this person who appears to be the "wanted man" walking through the terminal area and alerted TSA. They perform the search so he could be detained and his identity verified. The knife was just a lucky find and used as the excuse.

Or maybe someone witnessed somebody stuffing something into that guys bag when he was not looking and notified TSA. TSA would be obliged to stop and search the bag for his safety. Again, the knife might raise some eyebrows, but his story would have to match the circumstance.

Just two of many situations that may have taken place....

[jwenting]

If the weapons were illegal under the law of either departure or destination city they did the correct thing in detaining the passenger for questioning.
If the passenger was subsequently released and the weapons returned he was apparently capable of producing sufficient documentation proving that he has the right to carry those weapons (permits etc.).

The airline might be at fault for delaying the flight, but most likely they were told in advance how long the procedure was likely to take and decided they could make up lost time en-route.

[assghanistan]

[/quote] there could easily be another explanation. It is not impossible that the person carrying the knife is a known or suspected criminal or terrorist. Someone may have spotted this person who appears to be the "wanted man" walking through the terminal area and alerted TSA. They perform the search so he could be detained and his identity verified. The knife was just a lucky find and used as the excuse.

Or maybe someone witnessed somebody stuffing something into that guys bag when he was not looking and notified TSA. TSA would be obliged to stop and search the bag for his safety. Again, the knife might raise some eyebrows, but his story would have to match the circumstance.[/quote]

nope. no other explanation. I have worked with these guys since their inception, and have personally trained almost all of them on all their screening duties. the tsa agent was searching the bag, like he was supposed to, saw the blade, and called it a dagger. he said the blade was approximately 5 to 6 inches long and was double edged, therefore it was a dagger. tsa (all the way up to the fsd) decided to call the cops. turns out, the blade was only about 3 inches long, and it was not a dagger. they kept the blade, and the passenger eventually got on the flight. the airline agents did not know how long he was going to be detained, and notified tsa several times that they needed to let us know if they were going to detain him any longer or not, so we can either get him on the flight, or pull his bags off the plane, and reroute him on a different flight. the plane went out late, because rather than cause this guy a whole lot of s**t in trying to get him to kuwait, we figured we would take a hit on the whole on time deal, and make sure he made it to his final destination, seeing as how tsa already screwed him over by taking his knife (which his grandson gave to him as a gift).


i have no problems with a lot of what tsa does, because i agree that i would much rather have a plane that is too safe than not safe enough. but as an airline agent that actually screened our own passengers for flights for 3 years before tsa came in, i do know what should and shouldn't be done. the main problem with tsa is that they lack common sense, and everyone is scared of what repercussions they may face, so instead of actually providing any customer service at all, they would rather cover their asses and cause a lot of hell for the airlines and the passengers. tsa went way too far by even calling the cops (against airport security's advice), and by detaining the customer for half an hour. all they had to do was ask the guy about the knife (even if that), and let him go after they figured out that he was 70, obviously had no malicious intentions (especially since it was in his CHECKED BAG), and done the rest of their job like they were supposed to. its that whole GOD complex thing. put someone in a position of "power" and let it go to their head.

[FlyCharlestonSC]

TSA:
Taking Scissors Away
Thousands standing Around

[screaming_emu]

I'm with Jeff on this one, people seem to only want to talk about the negatives of things. I see many more pointless threads of "which airline do you dread, which airplane dont you like, airbus horror storries, etc" on here rather than, "look what the TSA found in someones checked bag today, listen to the great service I got on my flight today, etc". Do you remember shortly after the TSA came into existance, how every once and a while you'd hear of some of the things that TSA confiscated from passenters carry on bags? I distinctly remember reading things like guns, large knives, mace, etc. Okay, maybe people had no malicious intent, but who knows?

I admit that it sounds like the TSA went overboard in this particular case, but when you're perfect, feel free to criticize. I feel much better with the government being in charge of security. Up here at Grand Forks when security was still run by the airlines, we had a metal detector that would go off when people walked next to it, but not through it. When the TSA took over, within a few months (which is fast for the government and pretty much any company) we had a brand new metal detector, a wall put up between people going into the gate area and people coming out, more screeners, and one of those laptop scanning machines.

[assghanistan]

damn! ya'll got spoilt! :P

[cal99]

When the TSA took over, within a few months (which is fast for the government and pretty much any company) we had a brand new metal detector, a wall put up between people going into the gate area and people coming out, more screeners, and one of those laptop scanning machines.

Its not hard to get new equipment/walls/laptops etc. when you've got unlimited tax dollars to spend..