Hand grenade @ LAX halts flights
 

From NBCNews.com...

One Arrested After Hand Grenade Found in Los Angeles Airport
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...irport-n119116

"We continue to find inert hand grenades and other weaponry on a weekly basis," according to the TSA. "

I have an inert banana how many of you are scared by that? :rolleyes:

Do you really want to post that your banana is inert? ;)

And the Secret Service wrestled the banana to the ground ;)

Only to discover that it really wasn't a banana at all, it was an artfully concealed (in a coat of yellow paint) cucumber.

Out of an abundance of caution and in keeping with policy, the cucumber was confiscated.

Interested parties: like many of the unsafe materials TSA confiscates but finds not desirable for personal use, the cucumber will be listed on Ebay shortly.

The report is totally confusing. The grenade was live, apparently. Why insert a TSA statement about finding inert grenades in a report about a live grenade? That's like comparing apples to bananas.

The grenade was deemed live.

And, inert bananas are no laughing matter... Imagine how hard (ahem) it is for them to split.

A cucumber is 95% water. So it would take a cucumber weighing over approximately 3.6 ounces to be dangerous in the sterile area. I usually carry a much, much smaller cucumber in my pants pocket to avoid being searched at the checkpoint.

Not only are they dangerous, but they're also quite attractive to certain TSA agents.

LA Times: Man arrested for carrying grenade at LAX says charges will be dropped

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...531-story.html

HA! I have never had my banana dropped

How 'bout fondled?

Update, some sources are indicating/hinting that the item was inert - last info I had was that it was determined a possible threat (live was the actual terminology) and removed to render safe/disrupt.

And nobody is talking about dropping the banana around here, just whether it was inert or...ert.

This is one of the few - VERY few - areas where I completely agree with the old "abundance of caution" BS.

It's a hand grenade. Sure, it may have been inert, a replica, or a dummy practice grenade, but the average rank-and-file TSO is completely unqualified to make that determination. And I for one don't want front line TSOs shaking or fiddling with hand grenades in an attempt to determine whether they're live. How's the average TSO supposed to figure it out? Pull the pin and drop the spoon, and it there is no loud noise, it's safe? Unscrew the core, and if it's empty inside, it's safe?

No way. Let the professional boom-boom boys take care of it, and in the meantime, you dump the terminal and get everybody away from it, just in case it actually IS what it definitely LOOKS LIKE.

TSA should be going by three rules:
1) Always treat a grenade as if it's real and live, and therefore deadly (i.e. don't touch it and call EOD)
2) Always treat a gun as if it's loaded, and therefore deadly (i.e. don't touch it and call police)
3) Always treat bottles of water, snow globes, and cupcakes in jars as if they're bottles of water, snow globes, and cupcakes (i.e. don't touch it and let it through without a hassle)

For once, they seem to have gotten something right.

Annnnnnd, just a short time later, I re-read the LA Times article that says the EOD group indicated the item actually had explosive materials in it - so still defined as "live".

Kudos to the x-ray operator who was not so preoccupied looking for bottles of water, snowglobes, cupcakes, or credit card knives to see this grenade.

The pic of the grenade on the TSA blog shows it wrapped up in some sort of yellow duct tape. While this could be construed as a wise precaution, as it holds the spoon in place even in the event of the pin coming out, I am curious to know whether the grenade was taped up when found, or if it was taped up by TSA, or by the local EOD who responded.

Also, the hand holding the grenade is wearing what appear to be standard TSA-issue blue gloves. Does this mean that a TSO picked up the grenade to take a picture of it before EOD arrived? If so, D-D-D!

Inquiring minds want to know...

The stories hints that explosive core was incompletely cleaned out.

The fuse certainly had been removed.

It could have been one of the early model Mk2 with solid TNT instead of smokeless powder, and some was left behind. Or, more likely, it was an emptied powder type and a trace was detected by the ETD machines.