How did the knives get through?

[FJ]

Assuming these were fairly large knives, how did the terrorists get the knives past the detectors? Laziness on the part of the checkers? Ability to sneak it in?

I can see how the cardboard cutters got through, but what about the knives?

Just wondering,
F

 

[Looney]

Maybe they weren't made out of metal.

But supposedly they used cardboard box cutters as well... i can see how those could be deadly (especially if seperated). All you would need is to kill a couple of people to scare everybody enough for them to listen.

 

[crabbyapple1]

you know those new cermaic knives that are super sharp and don't need sharpening? got me a couple of those these days. that's how you would sneak it past.

BTW: probably some of the best cutting for cooking is from ceramic. won't turn your veggies or fruits weird colors like metal does.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I flew to Maine this summer and took all my luggage as carry on. In my backpack I had the following. A bowie survival knife, a swiss army knife, a small fold up shovel, and a 6 D Cell Maglite. Go figure, they scanned my luggage and let me pass. I was going on a backpacking trip and never had to check my luggage. I flew from Nashville, to Philidelphia, to Portland.....and back. So, I doubt they would have problems.

 

[Clinotus]

A lot of the newer ones come in plastic sheaths, most personnel at airports are not advised to look for such small items, even if they had the regular old-school metal ones most of the personnel are only trained to spot suspect packages, grenades, guns (assembeled or disassembled), etc... And the security at Logan airport despite what they say is possibly the most lax in the entire nation. A new station earlier this year smuggled a toy metal grenade and a bb gun shaped like a colt 45. through the detectors, there was a big stink about it but not big enough :|.

 

[blueghost75]

oh, they could care less if you carry a knife into the airport. get this: I went to pick up my sistem from the airport a few weeks ago here in Austin, Texas. So we going through security, and the security people make the lady in front of us drink some of the water out of her bottle before she could continue. I was thinking like, WTF? I guess they thought it was some explosive in the bottle. Whatever. So my mom goes through in front of me, no big deal, but then they use this little wiper thing to check ffor drug residue. ok, whatever, they must be a little anal about security today. Next, I go through. I stick my cell and keys in the basket, and they make me send the basket through the xray. Whatever, they have never done that before. So I walk through the metal detector, and the lady stops me, quite rudely in fact, and orders me to go back through and walk through with my hands OUT of my pockets. I scoffed at her and was like "whatever, lady" and did that. In my mind, of course, I was like WTF? biatch. You could at least have been nice about it. So we went on, having been harassed by the security people.

Ok, so we made it through the security finally, and we go to the terminal. We had one of my sister's freinds with us, and she has this tag on her shirt that she wants to cut off; it is making her skin itch. So my mom whips out this huge swis-army knife, at least a 3 inch blade, that was in her purse. Ok, so they are anal AND dumb.