By Ronald Kow
Senior Executive Subeditor
ronald@sph.com.sg

 

YOU feel airport security measures and procedures are too stringent -- and often intrusive -- but, since you have to or want to travel anyway, you console yourself that they are necessary to ensure everyone's safety.

Going through international airports in the United States, you somehow get the feeling that someone is waiting to pounce on you, wrestle you to the ground, handcuff you or even shoot you and that seemingly polite "hi, how are you today?" has a hidden agenda.

Yet, despite the ostensibly thorough checks, there are times -- rare as they may be -- when you seem to be able to "smuggle" something through, unwittingly, of course. I confess that this happened to me once.

Fluids in a container of a certain capacity are not allowed on the plane and my family knows that only too well. My son once had his contact lens solution confiscated even though it was almost empty and we have had to give up an expensive bottle of cosmetics that my wife forgot to check in with our luggage when those items showed up in the X-ray machines.

But on that one occasion, flying back to Singapore from Los Angeles via Tokyo, we really did not know we had a "forbidden" item in our hand luggage that apparently went through undetected at LAX and was with us on board the aircraft all the way to Narita.

Picture this. Los Angeles International Airport. Or LAX. X-ray man sees a bottle in the bag. Second person goes through the bag and finds a bottle ... of some dried, salted Chinese fruit. Happy to have found that harmless item, said second person then puts it back into the bag, hands it over to you, thanks you and tells you to have a nice day. And you get on the plane that takes you to Narita, where you get off to wait for the connecting flight back to Singapore.

In transit at Narita, you have to go through another round of the beep test, take out your laptop and have it screened separately, put your cellphone, coins and other metal objects on another tray, and have all your carry-ons X-rayed again. You feel more at ease here since you already went through this, and the Japanese airport security people are oh-so friendly and courteous that you feel like bowing and saying arigato gozaimas several times.

At the other end, you are met by a smiling lady holding on to the same bag that was singled out at LAX and, after ascertaining that the bag belongs you, she tells you -- in pretty good English -- that the X-ray showed a bottle of liquid in the bag. You are very sure that she meant the bottle of kiam kim cho and even tells her exactly where it is. Japanese security lady takes out that bottle and hands it you, but does not return the bag to you.

She runs the bag through the X-ray a second time ... and "a" bottle is still in there. She comes back to where you are waiting, opens the bag, goes through another compartment and .... hey presto, there is that other bottle. Of liquid.

Oh, we weren't scared that we were "found out". We were more amused by the whole episode.

At LAX, one person watched the X-ray monitors but another person checked the bag that showed up with the suspicious object, took out an item that fitted the description, found it to be harmless, put it back and then returned the bag to us and we were on our way.

At Narita, the same person who saw the bottle on the screen went through the bag, found and took out the item, X-rayed the bag a second time for any other objects that might have been missed earlier. And lo and behold, there was that second bottle ... which contained a liquid and was of a capacity that was not allowed on board the aircraft.

If you ever wondered how certain things can get through stringent security checks, this is an example of one of the rare lapses and, hopefully, a very rare example of LAX security procedures. Fortunately, in this case, the "culprit" wasn't carrying a vial of nitroglycerine.