Habitually Good

This is a bit of a rant because of what I lost. However, it is also something that came as a shock to me. I haven’t been writing a lot lately, because I have been traveling a lot and haven’t found the time for it. As you can tell by the title of the post, this is related to airport security, in particular with the part where you have to go through the security screening before getting access to the boarding area on airports. Most western nations are very stringent in these screenings (take out your laptop, don’t forget the belt, liquids in a plastic bag, etc.). Imagine my horror when I discovered that I had been traveling for days with a knife (with a 3 inch blade) in my cabin baggage and no one stopping me from doing it.

I was in Norway on Saturday clearing security on the airport to board a homebound flight. This was a very small airport in a town called Sandefjord. One of many that I had to go through on this trip. Anyway, after my bags were X-rayed, the security officer asked if he can take a look in my camera bag (which I carry around all the time). I said of course he can.

When he started going through it, he brought out this knife (pictured on the left). I was shocked. I of course didn’t know that the knife is there (else I would have checked it in). It’s a nice knife, and I like it. He obviously didn’t let me take it on board. But that is not the story.

I didn’t know that the knife was there because I hadn’t put it there in recent memory; certainly I didn’t put in there in this trip. This means, that on this last trip alone

• This knife first cleared security on Indira Gandhi International Airport, as I went from Delhi to Amsterdam (Holland).
• Then it cleared security on Schipol Airport, as I flew from Amsterdam to Trondheim (Norway).
• Then it cleared security on Trondheim Airport, as I flew from Trondheim to Oslo (Norway).
• Then it cleared security on Oslo Airport, as I flew from Oslo to Stockholm (Sweden).
• Then it cleared security on Arlanda Airport, as I flew from Stockholm to Ostersund (Sweden).
• Then it cleared security on Ostersund Airport, as I flew back to Stockholm.
• Then it again cleared security on Arlanda Airport, as I flew from Stockholm to Oslo.

There were 7 instances on this trip alone where this knife was in my camera bag and it cleared security screening (a metal object this large through X-ray). Only on my return flight from Norway, did it finally get caught. And I am pretty sure that this was in my bag even on my last trip which was a couple of weeks ago, and had almost as many flights.

I wonder if it really is this easy to slip-in a weapon, or they got incredibly unlucky 7 times.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.