What have airport security removed from your luggage?

I have a few..

One for carrying more than one cigarette lighter.. (one in my pocket and a spare in my carry on) the security guard got quite stoppy about that, my fault though.

Another time, also my fault, a can of beer… It was a 2 hour train jouney to the airport so I bought a 4-pack, drank 2 on the train and one at the airport before customs, and forgot about the forth one. The security guy was really nice this time, he just said “is this yours?” I said yes, I’m really sorry, I forgot that was in there. He just said “say goodbye to it” and winked, I smiled, and that was that.

A slightly different slant…

I took some of my dads ashes back from Spain to the UK, I checked beforehand it was allowed in hand luggage, as long as it was in a suitable container and you had full documentation with it (official spanish death cert and cert of cremation)…I seperated it out so as not to hide it (I put some in a robust stainless steel coffee jar type thing).

Security in Spain obviously pulled me to one side to check properly… and then said sorry….I said “it’s ok, you must do your job” and they said no, I’m sorry for your loss. I thought that was really nice in what was a very hard time, especially as flights were just starting up again after covid.

Bottle of Calpol. It wasn’t too big, but we’d had to open it on the way to the airport and forgot the rules (it wasn’t long after they were introduced)

My daughter, maybe 3yrs old, saw them taking her favourite gloopy shite away and threw a proper tantrum … so they gave us it back !

Mrsbunk is rubbish at this. One journey she had two pairs of scissors confiscated. On another trip she had a large rock from a beach and some tahini taken from her. Presumably because they are crap souvenirs of a lovely holiday.

I got given a small multi-tool/Swiss army knife type thing the size and shape of a credit card, it was surprisingly useful and included a fold-out blade like a small Stanley knife.

Going on holiday I completely forgot it was in my wallet… Manchester failed to find it on the way out but on the way back they spotted it in Amsterdam, a couple of police turned up and gave me a severe talking to. Along the lines of “we’ll let you off this time but you’re on record and anything similar next time we’ll throw the book at you, glare, grrr”

More recently I lost my phone going through Gatwick. Someone answered a call later that day and said they were security and it would be in lost property… it never showed up, so seemingly someone behind security nicked it 🙁

What’s a waffle iron?

.

I had a jar of pesto taken off me at Edinburgh, I lost the liquid/solid argument with them. But a Sikh chap was allowed to keep his wee knife, I forget the name of it, as long as he put it at the bottom of his bag and remembered to put it in checked baggage next time!

It seems that a bag full of rocks is not accepted in your hand luggage in Lisbon. I’m bit by bit bringing back those little limestone cubes that are used for paving out there. I have seven to date; I’m playing the long game.

Kids lightsabers  Dublin

The maddest thing yet has to be a set of toenail clippers.  As they were a “cutting device” over 2 inches long.

I’ve read all these and from my experience and others here it seems like security at AMS are the biggest arseholes with least sense of humour/empathy.

I’ve read all these and from my experience and others here it seems like security at AMS are the biggest arseholes with least sense of humour/empathy.

The security at Fishguard ferry terminal must be close. Getting the boat to Ireland and got pulled in for a search. They insisted on doing a rub down search of me even though I was then going to get into a van loaded with all sorts of stuff they hadn’t bothered to search at all – completely pointless exercise.

More what they didn’t find…

At Gatwick in the days when you could carry a knife on a plane they claimed the lock knife in my carry on bag had traces of drugs on it, following much searching of all crevasses and them coming to the conclusion that the drugs were inside me, maybe they thought I’d poked them up my bum with a knife, I was arrested and told to sit on a perspex throne where I got stage fright and couldn’t deliver the goods so was driven to a private hospital for an x-ray.

They found nothing and let me go without a single comment or apology.

Small camping gas canister in my hold luggage in Kathmandu airport whilst boarding a flight to Lukla

I’m amazed they even scan the luggage!

Sausage roll! Landed in San Francisco and a lovely border force beagle approached me and sat down, I was amazed and thought he was really obedient.

What he was actually doing was sniffing around me and sat down to indicate I had something on me that I shouldn’t have.

Luckily it was just a sausage roll I’d stored in my back pack as we left Manchester airport.

Had security guys with guns come running over at us once in a Spanish airport to go through my kids bag, the pez dispenser in there had shown up on the xray looking like a magazine for a gun. Once they saw it they all laughed and didn’t actually end up taking it

Not removed as such, but I once left my airside worker ID card in the car. Didn’t realise until I got to security (other people had held doors open for me). Security guy looked at me and came out with what was clearly his favourite phrase: “Looks like your flight will be going without you…”

Me: “I don’t think you understand how air travel works.”

Anyway, the airline booked me a standby seat on the flight and I just went through using my passport 15 minutes later. Because of this I had to have a police escort while I was outside on the tarmac walking around the plane, and the guy kept pointing his gun at me every time I reached out to touch something. This continued until we made it back to the steps when he escorted me to the flight deck before saying goodbye.

Wish I knew what the passengers were thinking, as they were all on board at the time.

My wife’s bag delivered up a succession of long-forgotten nail scissors to Italian security, like some kind of magic trick, I think we got up to five or so, even the guard was laughing by the end.

A friend is involved in testing airport security all round the world – specifically testing their ability to detect explosives by using methods for  trying to evede overcome detection systems. These are done as blind tests – the devices and materials are real and the airports don’t know their systems are being tested. Putting a pair of scissors in the bag has so far proven 100% successful as a method for carrying a bomb through a security check.

All these examples above – overwhelming security personnel with trivial transgressions – pretty much defeats the whole system.

Bottle of chain lube by the TSA and a chat in a small windowless room at Denver was the most ‘fun’ I’ve had with confiscated items in bags.  I wouldn’t have minded but 1. it was in exactly the same place on the way into the USA, and I was leaving the USA…

Most stupid was the flight we took from Palma days after 9/11, the Spanish cops and military they’d drafted in to help were having a ‘mare. I got pulled becasue my son [3 at the time] had a pair of ‘scissors’ (in reality the blades were bits of plastic) in his backpack. The Spanish soldier and I had an unspoken conversation about what the world had come to, and he slid them back into the pack. They took my wife’s zippo though as she’s a dangerous terrorist.

Not confiscated but surrendered.  Years ago we were flying to the USA on Christmas Day to see the inlaws for Christmas.  My late wife worked in London and it’s Christmas Eve so gets an absolute bargain on a posh box of Christmas crackers from Harrods.  Get asked at check in if we have crackers and we say yes. Sorry sir, you can’t take those.  My wife wasn’t having that so on challenging them its the snaps they don’t like (guessing it registers on scanning equipment as explosives or is considered a hazard of some sort?)  So I sat on the floor of check in and de-snapped every single cracker and handed the snaps over, number check to make sure there were the same number of crackers and snaps and off we go.  We had to shout bang when we pulled the crackers at dinner. Always wondered how many crackers you’d need to hole a 747!!

What’s a waffle iron?

One that weally fails to make your cwothes fwat!

Or

https://images.app.goo.gl/GsvmtVpJGW4Ymmnw7

Because of this I had to have a police escort while I was outside on the tarmac walking around the plane, and the guy kept pointing his gun at me every time I reached out to touch something.

This seems somewhat excessive. What are they going to do when you sit down and start controlling a metal box with 200 people in it?

Putting a pair of scissors in the bag has so far proven 100% successful as a method for carrying a bomb through a security check.

Yeah, they never found that.

Leaving schipol was stopped and lead shot diving weights were inspected quite closely.

The year of the volcano we got stuck in Malaga having spent a great week exploring and racing in Sierra Nevada. Was flying BA and we had to pack bags every morning just in case. When no flights we’d rebuild bikes and pedal, rinse and repeat for a week. Eventually BA drove us back to Heathrow arrived just as flights restarted, got on the first flight back to Edinburgh. Unfortunately after a week of care I’d just chucked a load of kit back into my hand luggage, including tools, bladed multi tool and first aid kit with various sharps. Nice security men escorted me to the secret air side hold check in. It was very much hand on shoulder type escort.  Passing at least half a dozen pupils and parents on the way. Of course the rumours had hit Edinburgh before we’d even taken off.

I’ve read all these and from my experience and others here it seems like security at AMS are the biggest arseholes with least sense of humour/empathy.

I don’t know what AMS is, but my experience with US security is they have a Senseofhumourectomy before starting the job.

Me: “I don’t think you understand how air travel works.”

Where’s that Like button?  That’s a superb story.

AMS = airport code for Amsterdam Schiphol.

Can we also vote on which airports/countries have the grumpiest passport control officers?

IME Manchester is grumpy, Netherlands and France are fine with occasional smiles if you’re lucky (mainly at the children). Tel Aviv takes the cake for grumpy and bored with a complete lack of any friendliness whatsoever.

+1 Manchester security staff being grumpy AF. Terminal 3 security also seems to reject 50% of all bags, making you wait for half an hour.

They nearly removed a Bruce Lee Blu Ray box set that was in my hand luggage because they didn’t believe that it wasn’t a bomb. I had to open all the packaging and take the discs out one by one.

Just went out and back through Gatwick/Palma with small toolkit, two pedals and a (bladeless) leatherman.

No problem, wasn’t even asked to unpack.

On the way back I had two almost full 750ml water bottles in my rucksac side pockets through the Majorca side, though I’d drunk them by Gatwick….

None of this was an issue then I set off the bleeper with some kleenex in my shorts pocket and had to throw that away…..?

Apparently, inner tubes look like dynamite on an x-ray machine.

The RAF coppers at Bastion didn’t notice my folding lock knife in my hold luggage when I checked in first time around. Obviously the flight was cancelled, so I had to check in the next night. When I checked in again they then found it, even though I hadn’t repacked the bag. I was a bit annoyed but much happier to be going home…

Not removed, but on an internal flight between Newquay airport and St. Mary’s on Scilly, I was called into security office whilst sitting in the departure lounge and asked to explain what was in my shoes packed in the hold luggage before they were going to remove them. I suddenly remembered that my partner had asked me to pack some mixed herbs she had decanted into little foil wraps and a few stock cubes in their wrappings ( we were self catering)  and I had shoved them at the bottom of the shoes. I duly opened one of each and was allowed to keep them. We now buy herbs and stock cubes at St. Mary’s.

Used to work for a company selling respiratory protection and breathing apparatus which used compressed air. Sometimes I needed to fly with kit for a demo – flying out with an empty air cylinder and getting it filled was sometimes a pain in the hoop, so I’d just take a full one. I’d done a morning demo in Lyon and flying back – got a call over the tannoy to go to gate/security. Admitting the cylinder was near full, I just walked outside and vented a 300 bar cylinder much to their consternation (makes a bit of a racket).

Flying back from Finland after a winter fatbike foray – didn’t realise I’d left my bike light batteries and a couple of Zippo hand-warmers  in the bike bag – cost me £60 to have them repatriated.

Some great stories 🙂 I had a book confiscated once 😉

At the time of the 2005 London Bombings*, a few of us were working in the US. Two days later we were flying back from San Francisco. For some reason, all the brits were being corralled for extra security checks by homeland securty who were a) very rude / assertive and b) armed.  They kept about 15 of us (most of my colleagues and a few other random brits) boxed in this temp area near check in while hoards of other passengers stared as they came past.

Nothing happened for ages. Just told to wait (stand) until ‘further processing’ could be carried out. I started to get a bit grumpy so when a security officer went through my hand luggage and pulled out a book I was reading on the American Revolution titled something like ‘blood and glory’ with a striking cover photo of soldiers at war, he got quite animated and asked me what it was about.

“have you read any books” I asked politely

“yes”

“It’s like that”

(I paraphrased something Prince Phillip said about flying that stuck in my mind)

There was a moment of silence, which was frankly a bit scary, followed by a whispered conversation with the ‘supervisor’ and then he confiscated the blooming book! I was really annoyed but my boss at the time calmed me down with ‘want the book or want to go home?’

We made the flight. Just. And the cabin crew were lovely. Couldn’t have been nicer. Strange country 😉

*strange week as London had just been announced as winner of 2012 olympics so we’d been celebrating and then a couple of days later….

Flying out of Baghdad after a presentation to the Ministry of Sport, I was relieved of a roll of masking tape

Sausage roll! Landed in San Francisco and a lovely border force beagle approached me and sat down, I was amazed and thought he was really obedient.

What he was actually doing was sniffing around me and sat down to indicate I had something on me that I shouldn’t have.

Luckily it was just a sausage roll I’d stored in my back pack as we left Manchester airport.

Dogs are ace.

Car ferry to Bilbao security

“Do you have any knifes in the car”

”No”

”Ah wait , I do have a machete in the back for gardening.”

He sighed, though of the paperwork, and waved me pass.

Wood chisel(3/4″ gouge) had it in my hand luggage from Sri Lanka, to Stansted, and we even stopped over in Dubai. Indian customs and middle east customs didnt seem to bother, or more likely didn’t actually check anything on stopover passengers.

Stansted is where it became interesting. Seems customs there got in a bit of a flap. Seems having a sharp chisel( aka offensive weapon) in the hand luggage is not the done thing.

But all was cleared up, and it turns out there is a rule, where the Captain can hold things like this and return them to you once they land.

So uneventful journey from Stansted to Edinburgh airports.

But it seems Edinburgh had been forewarned i was forearmed, and they got into a bit of a flap too.

———-

I’d got the chisel from finding out the local tourist trap carving shop(got 14 small ebony elephants*(2×4″) to bring back as gifts had a small forge next door, and convinced them to make me a small carving gouge.

Not the best made thing, ain’t no Ashley Iles, but nice to see being made in front of you, and not the usual tourist souvenir, but better than the elephants.

(* all rehomed)

Marzipan bloody 1,5kg of Marzipan

Have Flown out of Belgium to France often with it but gets me checked most of the time. I now try to remember to put it in a separate tray. Trying to fly home from Northern France they took it all. They wheren’t impressed when I confirmed I did now Semtex(sort of explosive) looks and smells the same.

I was once waithed at plane entry by police when trying to fly to Africa. Security was not impressed by my 5l of corrosive liquid Did leave stickers on container and paperwork with it just missing an export permit. They where not impressed got to visit the secret security roooms to explain. Was allowed to pick it up on return but never bothered as work needed it in Africa not Europe.

Turns out a haggis, in tinfoil, packed next to a laptop charger, looks very much like a bomb!

I have to ask,

WTF are you doing with 1.5kg of marzipan?  Are you a baker?

I just remembered I had a similar one…some foil wrapped packages that in retrospect looked like packages of drugs or something…

Security, visibly alarmed, asked “what is THIS?!?!”

“Cheese and onion pasties” was my reply…they let me keep them and waved me through, but the atmosphere became very tense for a few mins!!

My son, whilst working at LHR, removed an Alexander McQueen knuckleduster clutch bag from a nice American Lady. She had brought it over from the US and didn’t know it was illegal to carry one in the UK. Sadly she could not go back and check it in or post it, because the police officer who was “helping” said he would have to arrest her landside for carrying an offensive weapon. She was in tears. It was worth about $1500 and she had to carry her possessions to the plane in a clear plastic bag.

“Cheese and onion pasties” was my reply…

That would have been fun if you were going to the US.  Pasties are what strippers wear to cover their nipples.