Add This to Things You Can’t Take on a Plane: Missile Launcher
 

Good Morning All:

Just another day for the T.S.A. from the New York Times!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/u...gtype=Homepage

The weapon was found in a man’s checked luggage in Baltimore. He said he was a military service member and wanted to take it home as a souvenir from Kuwait.[img]file:///C:/Users/Bill/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.png[/img]By Mihir Zaveri· July 29, 2019·

To the ever-growing list of deadly weapons, creatively concealed narcotics and poisonous creatures routinely found in people’s luggage and publicized by the Transportation Security Administration online, add something new:A missile launcher.The T.S.A. said it found the weapon in a man’s checked luggage at Baltimore-Washington International Airport around 5:45 a.m. Monday.

[img]file:///C:/Users/Bill/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image003.jpg[/img]The man, whom the T.S.A. did not name, told the authorities that he was an active member of the military and wanted take the missile launcher home with him to Jacksonville, Tex., as a souvenir from Kuwait.How he even got it to B.W.I. is not clear (as is how he acquired such unusual taste in memorabilia). =centerYet the T.S.A. said the weapon, which was “inert,” was quickly confiscated and turned over to the Maryland fire marshal for “safe disposal.”

The man was then allowed to catch his flight.“Perhaps he should have picked up a keychain instead!” Lisa Farbstein, a T.S.A. spokeswoman,

said on Twitter" target="_blank">said on Twitter

, sharing a photo of the gray, cylindrical object lying on top of a pile of clothes, including what appear to be military fatigues.The T.S.A. did not answer whether this was the first missile launcher it had ever confiscated.But it is not out of the ordinary for the agency to publicize unusual items that it finds.

The T.S.A.’s Instagram account has close to one million followers. Some of the discoveries the agency has shared there include snakes concealed in computer hard drives, bricks of marijuana hidden in Christmas wrapping and replicas of Freddy Krueger’s bladed gloves. Some confiscated items seem, on their face, benign. In 2012, the T.S.A. barred a woman from taking a cupcake onto a plane, explaining that the cupcake was packed in a jar filled with icing and that the icing exceeded the amount of gel allowed in carry-on luggage.Other items are more obviously dangerous. Every year, the T.S.A. finds and confiscates thousands of guns — sometimes loaded — at airport security or in checked luggage.

Not everything is caught. In January, a Delta Air Lines passenger carried, by accident, a loaded gun through airport security at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. The passenger later discovered the firearm and alerted the authorities.Not everything that is found needs to be confiscated. In June 2017, the T.S.A. shared on its Twitter page a photo of a live, 20-pound Atlantic lobster a passenger took through security at Boston Logan International Airport.It was unclear what became of the missile launcher. The Maryland state fire marshal did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday evening asking about its fate.The episode, however, allowed the T.S.A. to offer a reminder, for those who needed one: Don’t try to take a military weapon onto an airplane.

Good morning to you too

" Things You Can’t Take on a Plane: Missile Launcher "

Actually you can if it is checked baggage.

I would fight that with 50mm PP sewer pipe and win. Have teared a few like ones apart to find how easily it could be manufactured. Not difficult. Most walking sticks and some umbrellas are actually much more dangerous if used as weapons.

According to the article it was in checked baggage.

A friend of mine was refused boarding in Saigon because of a packet of electric arc welding rods in his checked baggage. Apparently they're "explosive"...
He flew a couple of days later carrying the same welding rods without any problems.

You're not kidding!!! There's a reason all those OAP / seniors manage to board the plane / bus first!!!

Yep. "You feeling lucky, punk? Make my day".

Herod (72 years and counting)

Crafty Hungarians took this walking stick thing to the extreme, look "kis fokos". Though known in the neighbourhood by different names also.

Perhaps they mistaken them for TIG welding rods, some of them are mildly radioactive, harmless normally bur not good if they are abraded and you ingest the dust.

I'm convinced most TSA are making it up as they go along.

More than once I've made a multi stop hop around the country, only to be told something I've been carrying on the entire trip is not allowed.

The last time was coming out of YUL.
A small end wrench on my key ring was no longer acceptable. 4mm/6mm ends, maybe 2.5mm thick and ~40mm long.
Maybe they thought I would disassemble the plane in flight.

My French was not good enough to debate it, so I took it off the ring and gave it to her.

I think you're referring to the tungsten electrode, which conducts the arc that melt the materials being joined.
Grinding a point on it for DC welding ferrous metals does emit some radiation.
As you've said, tungsten dust isn't good for one to breathe.

During training I had a fuel tester confiscated from my flight bag. One of those clear plastic ones you push up into a C172 wing fuel drain. They have a philips screwdriver head on them. I asked why she was confiscating it and she said because it could be used to disassemble parts of the plane during flight.

I pointed out that I was a trainee pilot and highly unlikely to do anything like that, and she said "you aren't helping your case Sir, you're telling me you know how to disassemble it as well"

haha

i'd say she had you bang to rights mate :E

Per Trum.....
 

Sooooooo, being a private pilot and entering with tools,,, Hmmm, were did I hear that before.
Ah!
9/11 that is when.

Seriously Dude!

Brains certainly do seem to be lacking with some of the TSA decisions re 'dangerous' goods. I used to work for BP Chemicals Advanced Materials in Kent, WA. One of the products we produced were the launch tubes for the TOW missile. It was, simply, a machined fiberglass tube. There was certainly nothing 'dangerous' about it, except that you might be able to hit someone over the head with it. It was just a fancy plastic pipe. And this type of thing was confiscated from checked baggage.....?

Has anyone been able to identify what system this was from? SMAW maybe?

Good job they took the plastic fuel tester off me then! Unfortunately the cabin crew then gave me metal cutlery with the inflight meal. :ok:

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I don't suppose TSA staff are given comprehensive training on all things that are actually safe. I expect the training to focus, rightly, on things that could be unsafe.

They will also have extensive training on how it is their responsibility to use their judgement in preventing The Bad Guys finding new ways (shoes, fluids, who knows what) of getting harmful things into aircraft.

Before you insult a man walk a mile in his shoes. (That way when you DO insult him you'll be a mile AND you'll have his shoes)

Another one found at BWI! Second one this week:
https://wjla.com/news/local/a-second...y-tsa-security

Please stop finding them!

They may be destined to take out Russia's spokesman in the White House!