I forget a knife in my bag, TSA forgets to find it (thankfully, no terminal dump!)
 

I drove down to FL with my wife to visit her family for a few days. I then flew home to go back to the office, as I had a lot I needed to get done and couldn't visit as long as she wanted to.

I was looking for her car keys this morning in my laptop bag, since my car is still with her. What do I find? A folding knife (larger than a pocket knife, mind you)! :eek:

Oops.

I usually double-check my laptop bag prior to flying to make sure there aren't any items like knives or liquids/gels in its pockets--something I do specifically for that particular knife, which I often have when not traveling by air in case I'd need it for things like cutting the seat belt after a car accident, etc. But the past couple of trips I've taken have been on very little sleep, and apparently I missed the knife in the sleepy rush to the airport.

The scary thing is, so did the TSA. Three times. (As I'd recently flown a roundtrip without unpacking prior to this trip).

Now, tell me again how effective the TSA is going to be at catching weapons, bomb components, etc. at the checkpoint?

At least I didn't turn myself in to the TSA and cause a terminal dump. And, apparently, that magic rock still works, because the knife did not cause any plane hijackings or crashes, either. :p

The TSA only had a 20% (or less) chance of catching the knife given their screener performance audit results.

Want your $5 billion back now? :)

This has also happened to me (small folder). :eek:

But, hey, they sure are good at catching the bottles of water and sticks of lip gloss, aren't they?

You did the right thing keeping quiet. All the idiot TSA people can find is water & other liquids.

Wirelessly posted (My IV to the Net: BlackBerry7250/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

I have done this several times. Usually only realizing that I have / had the knife after arriving at my destination.

Although once I realized it immediately after I walked through security.

No planes were hijacked that day.

Be glad you found it and not the TSA. You would have paid a hefty fine if they found it.

Maybe had the IAD TSA found it.

Although I complain about the idiocy of the BKW TSA (indeed, the very existence of a 6+ member TSA goon squad for an airport with 3x daily commercial flights seems a waste of my $$), I suspect they would have let me hand it to my parents, who were sitting in the lobby 5 feet away from the gate at the time.

The JAX TSA--the last ones to miss it--are, IME, good guys, and I suspect they would have let me either give it to someone landside or mail it. JAX is one of the few TSA checkpoints that consistently earns compliments from me; back pre-8/10 water carnival, they would discourage people from removing their shoes, for example.

Exerda,
Dude check my post from another thread yesterday............ I feel your pain :(

Safe travels
Tim

I forget a knife in my bag, TSA forgets to find it (thankfully, no terminal dump!)

Can you imagine if you had a bottle of water???

Before the liquid restirction, they had a higher success rate.

I was caught with an expensive swiss army knife at TSA LAX about 3 years ago. I didn't give it up because I had extra time. I went back and bought a roll of tape in the terminal and clandestinely taped it underneath a street side phone kiosk. Went through TSA. 2 days later picked it up on my return.

Thank god no one saw me taping a knife underneath an airport phone!