Airport screeners working for the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are used to stopping passengers carrying loaded handguns – it’s America, after all – but finding a missile launcher still comes as a surprise.
A man who packed a missile launcher in his checked baggage this week triggered an alert at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. TSA officers immediately contacted airport police who tracked down the traveller and detained him for questioning.
The man explained that he was a military officer returning home from Kuwait. He had wanted to keep the missile launcher as a souvenir.
TSA officials told him that military weapons are not permitted on aircraft, either as checked luggage or carry-on bags.
The launcher was turned over to the Maryland State Fire Marshal for safe disposal, after tests determined that it was not live.
TSA photos identify the weapon as the launcher for an AGM-176 Griffin, a lightweight, precision-guided munition developed by Raytheon. It can be launched from the ground or air as a rocket-powered missile or dropped from the air as a guided bomb.
Griffin missile launcher during testing
At Pittsburgh International Airport on the same day (last Monday), TSA screeners found a man carrying a .380-calibre handgun in his carry-on bag. It was loaded with 14 bullets, including one in the chamber.
It was the 23rd gun stopped by TSA at that single airport so far this calendar year. Most were loaded.
In West Virginia meanwhile, TSA officers stopped a woman at Yeager Airport carrying a .380 calibre handgun loaded with six bullets. The woman told officials that she forgot that she was carrying her loaded gun in her carry-on bag.
Loaded pistol at Pittsburgh
Throughout the US last year, 4239 firearms were discovered in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints, averaging about 11.6 firearms per day, an increase of about 7% over the total of 3957 handguns detected in 2017.
Almost nine out of every 10 firearms detected at airport checkpoints last year were loaded. The exact figure was 86%. Even more disturbingly, nearly 34% of the loaded guns had a bullet in the chamber, ready to fire, making them especially dangerous.
The missile launcher confiscated in Baltimore
TSA has the authority to assess civil penalties of up to USD 13,333 for weapons violations. A typical first offence for carrying a handgun into a checkpoint is USD 4000.
That should be a deterrent, but the American population is heavily armed, many people carry guns and some simply forget they are carrying them.
“What? You mean I can’t take my machine pistol on the airplane?”
Written by Peter Needham
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