Woman is accused of trying to blow up the airport with her carry-on. Then TSA begins pulling out her toys: ‘ma’am, what is this?’
A carry-on full of Christmas toys somehow turned into a very serious TSA inspection.
A 10-year-old’s carry-on probably shouldn’t attract much attention at an airport, but this one caught TSA agents’ attention in a big way. The girl had stuffed nearly every toy she received for Christmas into the bag, and when it went through security at Fort Lauderdale airport, she says agents pulled her aside to investigate what she had packed.
According to a storytime video the woman shared years later, the search turned into an increasingly strange Christmas toy unboxing. TSA agents pulled out an animation kit, a Crayola Marker Maker and, eventually, a giant tub of Crazy Aaron’s Galaxy Thinking Putty while trying to figure out what had caused the bag to raise concerns.
The whole thing started with a family vacation that the girl wasn’t particularly excited about in the first place. Her family traveled to Key Largo and Key West for New Year’s Eve shortly after Christmas, but she hated the idea of leaving her new toys behind with so little time to play with them. So, she decided to bring them with her.
The search kept getting stranger
The carry-on had already made it through security on the way to Florida, so the family had no reason to expect trouble on the flight home. At Fort Lauderdale airport, however, the woman noticed several TSA agents gathering around the scanner after she put her bag on the conveyor belt.
Because she was 10, she said TSA searched her with her parents present before turning their attention to the carry-on. An agent wearing gloves and a mask began carefully removing the toys, starting with the tiny figure from her animation kit.
The agent examined the figure before deciding it wasn’t the problem and setting it aside. The Crayola Marker Maker came next, and the woman said agents tested different parts of the kit individually as they tried to determine what had triggered the scanner. Then they reached the Galaxy Thinking Putty.
She recalled an agent carefully removing the tub and asking, “Ma’am, what is this?” After she explained that it was Silly Putty, the worker opened the container and began testing the material.
The woman said she realized the agents suspected something in the bag could potentially help make a bomb. The investigation continued until the agents eventually gathered the toys together and told her family they might have to throw everything away.
That was enough to send the 10-year-old into tears. After several minutes, another TSA employee reportedly intervened and told the agents to let her keep the toys.
The family made their flight, but the incident became a running joke. The woman said her relatives still ask whether she has any Galaxy Thinking Putty in her luggage whenever they travel.
So why did the bag pass the first time?
The first thought has to be: how did this bag pass security the first time? If a 10-year-old’s carry-on looked suspicious enough for TSA to pull it apart at Fort Lauderdale, why did it sail through security when the family flew to Florida?
The answer is that airport screening isn’t necessarily a one-and-done judgment on everything inside a bag. TSA says screening equipment can trigger additional screening when it detects something that requires a closer look, or when officers need to examine a bag more closely. That means the same bag can make it through one screening without incident and still prompt questions at another.
A few things could explain it, including how she arranged the items inside the bag and how they appeared on the scanner. But the woman’s story doesn’t reveal what specifically triggered the alarm, so it would be a stretch to say the Galaxy Thinking Putty or Marker Maker was definitely responsible.
So, for whatever reason, a bag full of perfectly innocent Christmas toys made it through one airport without a problem and then set off enough alarm bells at another to warrant a full search. Unfortunately, her story doesn’t tell us exactly what the scanner saw.
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