Flying with turning tools ... mini rant ...

[Ron Smith ... Richmond, VA]

My brother who lives in Eagle, Idaho and I recently visited relatives for a family reunion in Carrollton, Kentucky and since he's just started to turn, I took him some gifts. I had an extra Jacob's chuck and some wine stopper kits for him, along with the drill bit and screw to turn on his new Jet Mini. After the reunion was over, it seems when he went through the screen at the Cincy airport, they questioned what all of the items were. The guy at the screen told him they couldn't let any of it go on the plane since he wasn't sure what the metal stoppers were, at which point my brother asked to see the supervisor.

The supervisor showed up, took one look and said "hey, how long have you been turning? I've made a bunch of those stoppers and pens myself". They got to talking and the supervisor was going to let my brother take everything on, but the screener asked "what about this chuck key? He has the drill bit, the holder and this (holding up the chuck key) and could use it as a weapon if he puts the bit in the other thing".

The supervisor asked my brother if the drill bit was worth leaving the line after waiting 35 minutes for their turn to be screened and mailing it to himself, and my brother told him "no". So in the end, my brother was allowed on the plane with two lighters, a bottle of Myland's friction polish, the drill chuck, chuck screw, metal stoppers and his "leatherman" tool in his carry-on ... but no drill bit. Go figure. Thank goodness we have these people protecting the skies as we fly.

[Dennis Peacock]

Well....at least he got home with the "important" pieces. :rolleyes: :D Replacing a drill bit is cheap considering the cost of replacing a chuck they wouldn't let onboard. Glad all went ok and at least he was able to meet someone at the airport that KNEW what those things were. BTW, congrats on sharing ww'ing with your family members. Wish mine were interested in ww'ing. :confused:

[John Hart]

...So in the end, my brother was allowed on the plane with two lighters.....

Yeah...I just heard that you could take a lighter but you can't take matches because the shoe bomber had matches.

I, I, I just don't get it.

[Harry Goodwin]

How in the world did he get a leatherman tool on an airplane in his luggage. I own three leatherman tools and several Gerber's. I would never call them insignificaant since they have at least one blade and maybe two.
Woodturners are a tight bunch arn't they. Harry

[Carole Valentine]

Wow...I really feel safe flying our skies! Think I will just stay put! BTW...Mylands has to be shipped by ground when you order it!

[Jerry Clark]

I recently got stopped by screeners -- they found something in the bottom of my camera bag-- took it apart and four times through the xray for them to finally get it out--a two inch allen wrench stuck under the bottom. Had been there forever and on other flights. They confiscated it :cool:. Could have taken a pencil or pen on -- go figure! Many years ago a co-worker had a pen that shot a 38 out the top-- looked just like a pen. Always wondered if they would catch that.

[JayStPeter]

That security guy should be fired. Everyone should know better than to even try to take that kind of stuff on an airplane anymore.

Jay

[Jean Holland]

Last August, my husband and I went to San Antonio, TX for my son's Air Force Basic Training graduation. Naturally, we couldn't go there and not stop at Jointech. He has one of their systems. He bought some more stuff which included a long metal rod of about 18" (what exactly for, I'm not sure - but it could do some damage). We checked the big box that had some part in it, but carried the bag (with the long metal rod) without thinking. When we went security, they checked the bag twice , then asked who's it was. We were both dumbfounded and not certain what to do since we didn't want to leave it behind after just buying it. When my husband explained it was a tool, the guy said "okay" and let us have take it on the plane.

I really felt safe on that flight!

Also, knitting needles are approved to be taken on the flights now. I think I can do more damage with a knitting needle than an allen wrench!

[Frank Hagan]

Yeah...I just heard that you could take a lighter but you can't take matches because the shoe bomber had matches.

I, I, I just don't get it.

I thought it was the other way around ... I fly a moderate amount (25,000+ miles per year) and there's always a bin of lighters at the security check points.

I was flying on 9/11, so I don't begrudge the security people any of this. That was a scary day. The guys that hijacked the planes were carrying box cutters, which they were allowed to carry on. Carrying on tools is an invitation to "bathroom bomb-making", which is the next method some of the experts expect the bad guys to employ, or disabling the cockpit security.

[Frank Hagan]

Also, knitting needles are approved to be taken on the flights now. I think I can do more damage with a knitting needle than an allen wrench!

One of the things they do is observe how you react when they ask to search your bag, and when they pull the item out. Next time, note that there are at least two people there ... one is doing the "checking" and the other is observing you. Usually, there's a third farther away also observing you. They are REALLY checking you out, but you don't notice because you're looking at the guy rifling through your bag. Watch this next time you see someone being searched by the TSA. Its fascinating once you know what they are doing.

Your knitting needles could be used against a person, but they can't remove the nozzle from the oxygen bottles stored above row 1, and, using your lighter, allowing you to turn them into blow torches. Your knitting needles can't defeat the cockpit security doors to get at the controls. And they can't dissassemble the bathroom toilet shroud and allow you access to some of the plane's electrical and hydraulic controls. Tools aren't allowed on planes because they can cause an entire airliner to fall from the sky. And some things aren't allowed ... like butane lighters ... because they can be made into bombs on board (the next method that a lot of experts think the terrorists will use).

Some of the things don't make sense ... the Leatherman should never be allowed on board, for instance, and I winched when I saw them search a pilot in the early days after 9/11. But some of the things they do make a lot of sense ... if you know the reason for it.

[Kurt Aebi]

This is the exact reason that our technical service people no longer travel with their tools, nor do we try to ake any replacement circuit boards or stepping motors anymore. Now we UPS/Fed Ex them to their job site!

It is an inconvenience, but I'd rather be inconvenienced than killed by a lunatic.

It used to make me laugh, in the old days they took away my pocket screwdriver, but let me on with my swiss army knife! I guess the rules were always a little strange.

[John Hemenway]

I wouldn't usually reply to this because my views on this are, shall we say, not mainstream. :)

I think this is just another case of the government doing the wrong thing just so they can say they did something. In my more cynical moments I consider the possibilites of all the money that can be made screening the innocent, making us all afraid of and willing to do anything to stop the terrorists. We have given up some of our freedom and spent vast amounts of money since 9/11. Some companies have made huge profits providing 'security solutions'. Are we any more secure?

9/11 happened not because the terrorists had weapons, but because the flight crew let them onto the flight deck.

Now in fairness to the crews, this was a new situation and they did not expect the 'plane as missile' approach the terrorists used. I'm sure each crew thought this was an isolated event, a hijacking for money or 'fame'.

A much more effecient approach to counter-terrorism in the skies would be training for the crew to UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES let passengers onto flight deck. If they can't gain control of the plane, they can't direct it into a target.

How many passengers can a terrroist harm with a set of nail clippers, a lighter, or even the Handyman knife? (Oh my God, run he has a drill bit, we're all gonna die!!) I bet there would be passengers overtaking the bad guys before much damage is done.

Why are we so afraid of terrorists but not of driving cars? 50k US deaths per year in cars! Why don't we DEMAND safe cars?

I could go on and on about this, but I won't (for now :) ). It's getting way OT for this section of SMC anyway.

[Ken Garlock]

I don't object to the TSA people so long as they are acting like people and not some reject from the Gestapo. Over all, they are nice people considering the passengers that they must face day in and day out. What I do object to is waiting in the long lines.

I dropped off my suitcase at the Xray once, and the lady, in her twenties, looked at the destination tag for Dayton Ohio, and said 'one bag for Tahiti.' I told her "Tahiti, let me crawl inside", to which she said 'after me.' So not all of them are a bunch of grouches. :)

I like to watch "The O'Reilly Factor." Once Bill mentioned that when he travels, he FedEx's his baggage to his destination rather than go through the hassle at the airports. Nice, when you can afford it. :rolleyes: :eek:

[Aaron Koehl]

Let's all remember not to let this thread get political..
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/terms.php

[Curt Harms]

Yeah...I just heard that you could take a lighter but you can't take matches because the shoe bomber had matches.

I, I, I just don't get it.

That's because YOU'RE not a professional! ;) . I do a lot of short notice one way ticket purchases. Talk about a guaranteed way to get extra "attention" I told one screen that if I ever decided to be a bad guy, I'd be sure and buy a round-trip ticket :rolleyes:

Curt

[Jim Stastny]

I never once had a problem with my Zippo. But they won't let me take my cigar cutter.

[Gary Herrmann]

I used to travel a lot for my job - 10 years ago. I got laid off after 9/11 and had to take another travelling job because thats all there was. So I travelled a whole lot in the year after 9/11. Flying in and out of the East Coast was especially interesting. Got to the point where I untied my shoes when I got within 50 ft of the gate.

Mostly, I got used to it. It just took longer. I just read or talked on my cell while I waited. I never really ran into what I thought was a Gestapo goon. Just folks that wanted to do their jobs. Maybe travelling that much just made me numb to it. I'm not by nature a patient person, but I guess can adapt to things. I'm actually suprised every once in awhile now when I realize you can get on the planes so "quickly" now. I'm also SO glad I don't have to travel for work any more.


Ooh, my first post on the turning forum. Hopefully my next one will be relevant to turning. I'm dying to try, but will have to wait till I get a lathe. Something about the process really intrigues me.

[Donnie Raines]

One day, sadly, one of these security folks will allow something innocent to go on board and we may have another tradgedy on our hands becuase they(terrorist) find a way to use it an evil manner.

I don't view it as scare tactics...just trying to be safe. More needs to be done for sure. But the last thing we want to see the media reporting is something to the effect of why ____________ this happen....whatever it might be. And everyone will start asking if we did enough. Things are far more lacks here then most over sea states.

[Chris Barton]

As someone that flys about 2-3 times a week I can tell you that there was a very simple solution to this situation: check your baggage instead of carry on. You can check shotguns, pistols, machettes, axes, etc... But, they are very sensitive to the carry on issues and these are federal mandates. I am always amazed when someone in front of me has an item that is clearly contraban and has just passed 10 signs saying what can't be carried on and is surprised when they are told to surender the item for destruction or go back and check their bag. I just flew home from Baltimore last night and there was a guy in front of me with a 6" lock blade knife in his carry on. They caught it and he seemed like he had never heard the regulations about what you can take on a plane. Some folks are worried about the checked bag being lost but, in 10 years of weekly flying with international and cross country flights thrown in to the mix I have never had a lost bag.


Chris

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Just to make you all feel safer... My wife and I flew to Las Vegas on 9/11 on year after the attacks, talk about TIGHT security!! We were late so I threw on the pair of shorts I wore the day before instead of new ones... Didn't check the left pocket until we got to vegas...

Guess what was in there!??!?!

A swiss army knife!!

The dectors didn't see it. I never carry anything in my pockets through the line, I throw it all in my bag, so I didn't notice I had it until we got to vegas. That scared the crap out of me! If the 9/11 terrorists took over the plane with box cutters, what could my knife do??? Needless to say, I checked it on the way back!

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

The Box Cutter thing again...?


2. The misconception: We know how the hijackers seized the planes. Within days of Sept. 11, Americans believed they knew how the planes were grabbed: Terrorists had taken control by stabbing pilots, passengers, and flight attendants with box cutters and knives.

What’s wrong with the story: It’s incomplete and misleading. We don’t really know what happened on the planes. The cockpit voice recorder survived neither New York crash and was damaged beyond salvage in the Pentagon crash. The Flight 93 voice recorder doesn’t start until several minutes after the hijackers took the plane. What little we know about tactics and weapons comes from phones calls made by passengers and flight attendants. As Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out, the evidence is incredibly paltry. No one on United Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center, reported anything about weapons or tactics. One flight attendant on American Flight 11, which also crashed into the World Trade Center, said she was disabled by a chemical spray, while another flight attendant said a passenger was stabbed or shot. On the Pentagon plane, American Flight 77, Barbara Olson reported hijackers carrying knives and box cutters but did not describe how they took the cockpit. And on United Flight 93, passengers reported knives but also a hijacker threatening to explode a bomb. The box cutter-knives story isn’t demonstrably false, but it serves to divert attention from the other weapons and to mask the fact that we don’t have any idea how the hijackings happened.

[Dave Richards]

In 2000 my inlaws and I went to Norway. In my camera back I had the little table top tripod I always carry. Its profile when fold looks a bit like a pistol. Previous to this trip I had flown a lot within the US and never had anyone give it a second glance.

Going through security in Oslo to board a flight to Kirkenes, it got a fair amount of attention. As soon as they asked me to step into a little curtained room with a security person I knew what they were looking for. They wouldn't let me touch the bag and I don't blame them. I did tell them I knew what they wanted to see and told them where to look. After they took it out of the bag I had to show them how it works. Then they wanted to see my other gear and seemed very interested in the fisheye lens. I think the guy was into photography because he kept looking at different things through the camera with that lens. :D

Since 911 I don't even bother to bring my 'real' cameras let alone that tripod. It's just too much of a PIA. :rolleyes:

[Tom Jones III]

I don't even want to hear about problems at the airport ... try being in your 20's, athletic build, short military style haircut, skin color that could be middle eastern, an obviously fake name like "Tom Jones" traveling on tickets bought the day before with a brand new passport that I accidentally put through the wash so that it appears as if I'm trying to make it look old. I now have a better understanding for those people who lose their temper in the airport.

[Cecil Arnold]

Yeah Tom, I noticed you looked suspicious, and everyone knows you can't trust an Aggie.

Seriously, you can make a weapon out of just about anything, from a rolled up newspaper to shoestrings. Having worked in bureaucracies for far too long my impression is that there is too much top down regulation and CYA attitudes and too little judgment being used. There is nothing in the screening process that would identify something like C4 concealed on your person, and a blasting cap can easily be disguised as a pen in your pocket. Unless the magnetron is set at the extreme they will miss it if the wires are clipped. The missing ingredient, a 9v battery, and you are ready for Paradise and your 40 virgins (who really wants virgins, I'll take experience any time) so who needs to consider butane lighters. IMHO, do we need TSA, yes, are we safer than before 9/11, a little. If we let fear rule our lives and take away our freedom the bad guys win.

[John Timberlake]

I had a 1/8" router bit in my case on one trip and it took me an extra 15 minutes to get through security. They finally let me take it. Speaking of th shoe bomber, I was just in Spain, England, Germany and Denmark. Not once did I have to take my shoes off for security. Didn't the shoe bomber come out of England? Doesn't make sense.

[Curt Fuller]

Several years ago, summer of 2003 I think, I took my folks to Branson Missouri via the Springfield airport. While there I bought a small wood carving set and a couple chunks of basswood. I had it in my checked luggage but at the time Springfield didn't have any of the sophisticated xray stuff to inspect luggage so they just randomly picked passengers and opened their luggage right at the check in desk. After going through all my dirty shorts and stinky socks they came across the sack with the tools and wood. They didn't even take a second look at the tools (all could easily be used as weapons) but freaked out over the basswood. I told them it was just wood but they scanned it with some sort of wand and then huddled for a conference. Finally they told me I couldn't leave it in my luggage and could either throw it in the garbage can or mail it home. Luckily I had time to wrap and mail it but I thought it was pretty strange that they were worried about a couple pieces of wood that were obviously just wood. And I wondered what would have happened if it would have been some sort of an explosive and it ended up in the garbage can. Maybe blown up the whole airport instead of just the airplane. And this was all for checked luggage anyway, not carry on. I changed planes in DFW and when I got to SLC my luggage didn't show up anyway, probably because it got separated from the rest during the big shake down. Luggage got delivered the next day, wood came a few days later in the mail. All's well that ends well. But if I'm going 800 miles or less, before I'll drive an hour to the airport, show up 1 1/2 hours early for the check in circus, sit on the tarmack for an hour while they make excuses for why they aren't taking off, sit in a cramped seat for a couple hours with somebody snoring in my ear or talking my ear off, then wait another hour after the flight for my luggage, I'll just get in the pickup and drive, enjoy the scenery, and take any d*** thing I want with me.

[Frank Fusco]

How in the world did he get a leatherman tool on an airplane in his luggage. I own three leatherman tools and several Gerber's. I would never call them insignificaant since they have at least one blade and maybe two.
Woodturners are a tight bunch arn't they. Harry

I recenlty took a trip to Denver and back. Went through screening in Little Rock, AR, Memphis, TN and Denver, both ways. When I got home, I found a knife in my carry-on briefcase I didn't know was in there. And worse, it is a defensive type knife with a quick release from it's plastic holder. It was never spotted by TSA, fortunate for me.