HeHateY

When airport police and TSA security officers arrived a few minutes later, the individual and the bag were gone. Mason said the item appeared to be a double-barreled derringer handgun.

After security officers were unable to detain the person, the concourse was evacuated and passengers on five planes waiting to take off were unloaded and screened again. The entire process took about 1.5 hours.

An Air Canada Jazz flight that had already taken off following the breach was diverted to Detroit Metro Airport.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_articl...storyid=112091

TierFlyer

STL is a crappy airport (I hate only JFK and KC worse), but why couldn't they detain the guy?

Derringers sound funny, but they come in calibers up to .41mag to my certain knowledge (not that I'd shoot one of those!) so it's not something to take casually.

OTOH, only two shots per the description, and beyond 10 feet more random than targeted dangerous. Good in a cockpit, prolly.

tsadude1

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms...ls/COP_357.htm

BDLORD

They sure do, but it looks like the bad guy was "bigger" than the staff trying to detain him. Where was the LEO that I see at most big airports?
The TSA guys were smart enough to let him go at least. I would have done the same, no one pays you to get hurt.

VideoPaul

Never been to JFK. But I spent a summer flying into and out of MCI. The airport is one of the worst designs I have ever seen but a least it's CLEAN NOW, and I am told by folks that use that airport that they have fixed the issue where you had to go outside the sterile area to use the john.

Lambert is just a friggin' dump from one end to the other. I have enver seen as much cracked, crumbling concrete with rusted rebar sticking out and rust stains running down from it than I have there. The TSA is just short of the gestapo there, the employees are unspeakably rude about 50% of the time and the Panda Express needs a good cleaning. Then they blew through how many millions of dollars for a new runway at an underused airport and how many people lost their homes? I don't think that many lost hteir homes in DIck Daley's union workfare program known as "O'Hare Expansion".

--PP

VideoPaul

The man was in SAINT LOUIS MISSOURI.

If ever there were a justification to go armed, this is it.

--PP

goalie

i still don't get it and probably never will.....

suspicous and/or prohibited item in a bag legit or otheriwse....

how in god's name does the tsa:

a) let this bag out of their sight
b) let the pax out of their sight
c) let the pax and the bag disappear

morons-just absolute F*ng morons

seat17D

And this happens over and over and over again.

Just one more example of the current cynical approach to air transport security ...
1. We really can't secure the system
2. We really can't admit that to the public for fear of political fall-out
3. We need to do something visible so it will look like SOMETHING is being done
4. We can use this as an opportunity for a patronage hiring program, since it really doesn't matter who we have trying to perform an essentially futile function.
5. We might as well take the opportunity to toss a few contracts to our friends along the way.

flyinbob

I don't get it either.

When did they see this gun? If on the x-ray machine, the bag is still in the machine when it is seen on the screen. The belt is stopped, and the person can't get the bag.

If it was in a hand search, why does the agent simply not just call out "GUN" and every cop in the area would drop their donut and immediately draw down on the guy.

It completely amazes me how this could possibly happen over and over.

tkey75

So why does the news story end with 'they dumped the terminal to rescreen all the passengers...'?

How about the appropriate ending - '...after rescreening every single person and bag, they discovered there really was no gun'.

seat17D

Because even with countless eye witnesses, they never found the bag and they never found the pax in question.

But you might as well hard code those last 2 points onto the bottom of every terminal dump story.

coachrowsey

Not to worry he was on that Air Canada flight no harm done. Just another armed citizen

Rejuvenated

City also a dump with crimes worsening.

Wally Bird

No, no, that's not the Party Line. If an editor ever had the cajones to write an accurate headline - Incompetent Screeners Cause Terminal Evacuation - the men in black would be round quicker than you can say "Michael Chertoff".