Flying With a Knife

On a recent trip from BWI airport to Long Island, I brought along my usual backpack for short trips. I left for the airport in Baltimore at the latest time possible without actually missing the flight.

Now my bag usually gets a through looking over from the X-Ray examiner, since I fly with lots of electronics (laptop, iPod, etc). Aside from the occasional, “Would you mind turning your laptop on”, I don’t have any problems – and didn’t at BWI.

I wasn’t until I was on my way back to BWI that security in NY found something.

As my bag was making its way through the X-Ray belt, which seemed to be taking longer than usual, a group of TSA security people came around to the screen.

After a moment, they approached me asking if they could look through my bag, and I complied. Then they pulled out my Swiss army knife (a large one like in the picture). I guess I had forgotten to take it out and I told them that. The guy seemed nice about the situation, told me to check in my bag (around the corner) and then stamped my boarding pass so I wouldn’t have to go back through security.

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Makes me wonder how I was able to get a knife on the plane in the first place, with all the scrutiny and my bag being conspicuous. A knife on a plane is not very dangerous as it is – but letting me go the the other side of the airport, out of sight, with a free pass to skip security, now that made me wonder.