TSA officer at Ontario International Airport grabs a pillowcase out of a passenger’s bag. Then he feels it move: ‘I need to escalate this immediately’
Check airport policies before flying.
Samuel L. Jackson’s character famously had enough of snakes on a plane. Now, thanks to this Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer at Ontario International Airport in California, there will be at least two fewer snakes on one plane.
According to the New York Post, TSA Officer Benjamin Andrade-Carillo thought he was holding a bundle of rope inside a pillowcase when he inspected a passenger’s luggage. That initial thought changed when he felt the pillowcase move.
Once he felt movement, Andrade-Carillo recalled telling himself, “I need to escalate this immediately,” and he called a supervisor over to inspect the bag. Supervisory TSA Officer Flores found himself impressed by the discovery because “it’s not something you see every day.”
TSA officers found two live snakes in the pillowcase
The TSA manager at Ontario International confirmed that the pillowcase had two live snakes inside it. Because the officers couldn’t tell what kind of snakes were inside by feeling their movement, they stopped screening in that area to see whether there was any danger from venomous snakes.
Airport police arrived to take the bag and went to the ticketing area with it and the passenger it belonged to. At that point, the passenger took the snakes out of the bag and gave them to a family member who wasn’t flying.
Andrade-Carillo commented, “In my two years of service, I had not found anything like this. In San Diego, I experienced a gentleman trying to bring live lobsters as a carry-on.”
The passenger reportedly said they had been able to fly with the snakes on another airline. The two snakes were pets, and navigating air travel with pets can be confusing. In this case, nobody was bitten or injured by the snakes.
TSA pet policies can be confusing when it comes to species
If you have a cat or dog, it tends to be easier to find information about how you can travel by plane with your pet. When you have a pet that’s less common, the regulations can be unclear.
Thrillist asked TSA some questions about what kind of pets can go through the checkpoint after being unable to find the information on the TSA website. The answer is a rather unsatisfying “it depends.”
The problem is that pet travel restrictions vary by both airport and airline, according to the TSA spokesperson Farbstein. So, you have to check what that airport and airline, specifically, allow.
With the variability of these restrictions, the best solution if you’re flying and want to bring a pet along might be to contact the airports you’ll be going through, along with the airlines you’re using. They should be able to tell you what your options are for flying with a pet so you don’t have to guess.
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