Yet if the first guy had just tossed them in the trash, nobody would care.

But because for whatever reason they were put aside they were considered to be so dangerous that a TSA bomb expert was called in who took only two hours to arrive.

The NY Post has a picture of them



And says

The screeners promptly called their supervisor. He questioned the passenger, who claimed the pipes were for homeopathic medicine.

The supervisor bought the story and let the man board his flight without taking down any information, the sources said.

The flier left the pipes behind and it wasn’t until 3 p.m., with the devices still lying around the screening area, when the supervisor finally realized he should notify someone.

He called a TSA bomb specialist — who took another two hours to arrive.



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/q...#ixzz1l3ho0rGQ

So lets see if we have the timeline right.

Person goes through and screener sees the pipes
Screener calls the supervisor, who decides the person is no threat and lets them go, and puts the devices off to the side
Supervisor sees no reason to take down any passenger information, after all they said they were not bombs.
Hours later the supervisor says hey, I think I forgot to notify the Bomb Expert about those devices, and calls them
Two hours later, the TSA bomb expert shows up
They decide it's probably dangerous, so they call the Port Authority Bomb Squad
They come in, now six hours later, shut down the area, and remove the pipes that have been sitting around all day, and take them out to the Bronx to blow them up but they don't blow up

And then the TSA plays it all down by saying

A TSA spokesman later insisted the items were “voluntarily surrendered” and the agency notified cops only “out of an abundance of caution.”


The only thing that would make this story better would be if they put them under a "If you see something say something poster"