...taking a swiss army knife with a blade at least 2" long on a plane!

I was amazed, flew back from JFK to London Heathrow on Thursday night.... WITH my full size swiss army pocket knife in my hand luggage bag! Security at T4 apparently missed it, i was so scared i realised it was in there when i was in line. The girl at check-in didn't ask any of the usual things like if i packed my own bag, have you got any sharp objects, nothing to jog my memory. I'm usually so careful. So i dumped my bag on the scanner and was ready to ask if there was anything i could do to not lose it, and they didn't even take a look at my bag, it just went on through like all the others. They check our shoes, make us take off our jackets and belts, and yet they missed my pocket knife with a 2 and a half" blade. It remained in my bag in the overhead locker the entire flight, but if i got through, just think what someone else could have got through with! And the damage they could have caused.

You'd think the security guards were trained properly to do their jobs.

I'm surprised they didn't spot it, particularly on a flight to the US!

I was so scared, pretty much certain i was going to lose it, in such a bad mood when i realised it was still in there! Silly security people. Of all places you'd think the TSA were well trained!

Maybe you could send an anonymous feedback message or something alerting them to the fact their security missed it. Cos that's pretty darned serious.

The only thing TSA are good for is stealing your nice perfumes and toiletry bags.. Bag theft rose significantly after 2003 when TSA was formed. I need to find the stats for that though.
Do TSA check incoming bags or just outgoing and internal?

/bitter

I dont know. This was on my flight leaving the usa to come back to the uk.

After all the TSA locks theyve broken i always jsut do my bag up with cable ties.

They break your tsa locks with their own goddamn logo on???

:/ I'll be packing cable ties too then I guess.

Yeah when i heard theyve broken them open (from several peopel whove previously done ca) it didnt really suprise me. so i figured i'd rather use cable ties to keep opportunist thieves out!

That's actually kinda worrying they didn't spot that!

It would be interesting to hear if these people had the proper TSA locks, rather than a normal padlock.

I doubt they'd say they had them if they didn't.

Yea it was people with real tsa locks. To be honest they do tell you not to lock your luggage as it may well be opened. You will know because they put a sticker on your bag to say if it was searched. But cable ties work fine. The main reason people want to lock their stuff is to keep out opportunist theiefs - like maybe airline baggage workers - i'm sure theyre not all thieves but just in case!! So cable ties work fine to keep them out! Just pu a couple of spares inside incase the tsa open it. Also a good isea to write your full name and address on something and put inside yoru locked bag, incase for some reason the label comes off.

But the point of having the TSA locks is that they can inspect your bag without busting your locks open and relock the tsa locks after!

Just seems daft.

I know thats the point of them, but apparenlty they still seem to bust them open anyway. Better not to risk it and have locks broken that you forked out for. Mind you anyone takign a backpack would have issues locking a drawstring anyways! I usually jsut put the raincover over mine, protects it, makes it a little less easy to open up and keeps the straps tucked in so they dont get caught or broken.

They'll slash that to open it if they need to.. seems nothing is safe.