This story comes from Randy. Randy hasn’t had the pleasure of air travel since 9-11 so he wasn’t familiar with the details of TSA security. Here is his story!
“Airport security – what a joke” My momma’s visiting for the next 3 weeks and I had to go pick her up at the airport. Well, I haven’t been to the ATL airport since 9/11 and encountered the new “security” policy. So, before she left, I called momma and told her I’d meet her when she got off the plane and just sit tight. Then, I go to the airport only to discover that they won’t let me go to the gates without a ticket.
Now, my mother is 70 years old and walks with a cane. There is NO way she could navigate the maze of trains and elevators and find her way to the baggage claim without help. So I talk to the security officer at the barricade, explain all this and ask him what can be done. He shoves me off to the ticket lines to get a “gate pass”. I wait in line for about 30 minutes (along with 100 other people) watching the clock tick away to the plane’ scheduled landing time and knowing my mother is going to get off the plane, not see me and be totally lost as to what to do or where to go.
Then I spy somebody that looks important, bail out of line, losing my place, corner them and explain again. They say “no problem”, step over to the kiosk assistance desk and they’ll fix me up. So now I get in the kiosk assistance line, wait another 15 minutes, only to be told, I’m sorry, I can’t do that, you’ll have to find a supervisor (somebody with a radio). So I go track down a “supervisor” and they say, go talk to the kiosk assistance people. I said………..you get the drift……….and she steps over to a closed check in desk, logs in, asks me a couple of questions, none of which were “secure” and prints me off a “gate pass”. She says she added a note to my mother’ info that she needed assistance and to give this to the gate keeper and show them your photo ID and that’ll get you through the gates. So I get to the metal detector and here sits this girl on a bar stool, glancing at boarding passes. I show her the gate pass (which only has my name on it, nothing else) and my driver’ license and she says OK. I go through the metal detectors and on to the gates not being accosted any further. There’ a sign at the metal detector that says “no lighters allowed” along with no firearms, explosives, etc. I’ve got a pack of cigarettes poking out of my pocket, duh, I wonder if he’ got a lighter. Nobody asked or checked and the metal on the lighter didn’t set off the detector. I’ve got enough keys on my key chain to make any redneck proud and make a fairly formidable weapon. Dropped ’em on one side and picked ’em up on the other. Dynamite won’t register on a metal detector and there were no sniffers or dogs anywhere to be seen. Fortunately, the plane was an hour late so I was able to meet my mother with a wheelchair and get her safely to the parking lot.
How to sneak a bomb at the ATL airport:
Buy an old lady a plane ticket from somewhere on the internet.
Under comments, or special considerations, add “needs assistance”.
Somehow, hide some C4 or Semtex on her at her departure airport and put her on a plane.
Show up at the airport and tell check-in you need a gate pass.
Take your gate pass and walk past the security station.
Pick her up at the gate and wheelchair her to baggage claim and out the front door. (there are no security points coming from the gates, only going in).
I’m reminded of John Malkovich in the Clint Eastwood movie, In the Line of Fire. The wooden gun with the bullets hidden in the rabbit’ foot key chain. Get through any metal detector station without even being asked. Man, I sure feel better knowing that HomeLand Security is on the job!