A passenger at Washington Dulles International Airport was busted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) trying to smuggle a sharp utility blade through the security checkpoint by concealing the potentially lethal weapon in the sole of his flip-flops.
TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein shared photos of the alarming discovery after the passenger was caught at the checkpoint, which showed the outline of the blade showing through the sole of the traditional beach footwear.
Once the sole was peeled back, the blade was revealed, and the passenger was quickly detained. The reason why the passenger felt the need to try to smuggle the blade through the security checkpoint has not, however, been revealed.
As Farbstein noted, the discovery is a good reason why most travelers passing through US airports are still required to remove their shoes so that they can be x-ray screened.
Many people believe that the requirement to remove footwear at the screening checkpoint was introduced in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in 2001 when a group of terrorists used box cutters and small knives to overpower and kill crew and passengers on four commercial aircraft.
The truth, however, is that while bladed articles were immediately banned from inside airplane cabins, it wasn’t until several years later that the newly created TSA started ordering passengers to remove their shoes and place them in the bin to be screened.
The incident that prompted the additional screening of footwear came about after the attempted bombing of an American Airlines plane on December 22, 2001, by the ‘Shoe Bomber’ Richard Reid, who tried to detonate explosives that he had hidden in his boots.
Thankfully, Reid’s attempted terrorist atrocity failed, and he was quickly restrained by a group of passengers and crew.
Initially, the TSA and airlines asked passengers to voluntarily remove their footwear because they were going through the metal detector arch, but it wasn’t until August 2006 that passengers were mandated to remove their shoes.
That decision followed another terror plot originating in the United Kingdom, where an extremist group devised an ingenious method to smuggle liquid explosives on US-bound flights concealed in drinks bottles.
The United States, however, has now become an outlier in requiring passengers to remove footwear, with most other airports around the world allowing footwear to be worn so long as they are not bulky or go above the ankle.
The only way for passengers in the US to avoid the need to remove their footwear is to enroll in the TSA PreCheck program, which allows them to keep their laptops and liquids in their hand luggage.
The TSA does, however, warn PreCheck members that no one is guaranteed expedited screening and that a random check could be performed at any time.
