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Newark wine bottle fiasco causes President's Day shutdown
Ah, Newark. The same airport that brought us a multi-hour shutdown due to a couple in love has once again allowed a civilian to walk right past TSA. This past President's Day, a passenger had his bag scanned and the agent reportedly saw some bottles of wine and referred him to secondary screening. However, rather than getting screened, the passenger walked off. The airport was then shut down for an hour as TSA searched for this walker-awayer. They never found him, he never came forward and he presumably boarded his plane and -- shocker -- he did not use to wine bottles to harm anyone.
Three things:
First of all, I wonder what kind of person the perpetrator was -- perhaps he didn't speak English very well. I do speak English, regularly, and almost every time I've been asked to have my bag secondarily screened, I've been confused. "Me?" TSA is generally a messy kerfuffle, and I've nearly walked off myself. If the person didn't speak English very well and wasn't accustomed to airport procedure (which he probably wasn't, considering he had wine bottles in his carry-on), I have no trouble believing that this was an honest mistake.
Secondly, I feel really let down by the TSA. How many times have we all reached our destinations and realized we had pocket knives, wine keys with knives, bottles of lotion and what-have-you with us in our carry-ons? We tend to feel a sort of thrill as we realize that we totally pulled a fast one on TSA, but really, we should be angry. Their need to inspect us for every little thing has become an epic, world-wide pain in the hindquarters ... how dare they do it so poorly? Is there no one keeping score? If you think about the odds, it's virtually impossible that a passenger walking away hasn't happened before -- but the agents probably shrugged and let him or her go. Why shut the part of the airport down this time?
Thirdly, hey Newark: invest in some more of this. It might save you some time. Thanks. Look, I even found you a discount code. You're welcome.
[via nj.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pete Forester Feb 18th 2010 2:11PM
On my most recent trip (SLC) I was really late for the plane, so the baggage handler told me to just run to the gate. I tossed out my nail clippers and tweezers and just barely made the plane. When I got to my room I opened my bag only to be reminded that I had 20 Xacto blades. I could have used them separately with my scary friends or fashioned them together into a huge and incredibly sharp knife. I've hurt myself with 1 dull blade - imagine 20 new blades, sharp as scalpels. Scary.