Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

TSA Shuts Down Airport, Detains 11 After "Science Project" Found

Posted by samzenpus on from the put-down-the-graduated-cylinder dept.

OverTheGeicoE writes "A group of students and a professor were detained by TSA at Dallas' Love Field. Several of them were led away in handcuffs. What did they do wrong? One of them left a robotic science experiment behind on an aircraft, which panicked a boarding flight crew. The experiment 'looked like a cell phone attached to a remote control car with some exposed wires protruding.' Of course, the false alarm inconvenienced more than the traveling academics. The airport was temporarily shut down and multiple gates were evacuated, causing flight delays and diversions."

24 of 537 comments (clear)

  1. Scare quotes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the "Scare Quotes" in the title? Is someone implying that it was actually a bomb, and not a robot? TFA does not.

    1. Re:Scare quotes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because that way, more people click on it. Don't you know how news sales works?

    2. Re:Scare quotes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because that way, more people click on it. Don't you know how "news" sales works?

      FTFY.

    3. Re:Scare quotes by bfandreas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Excellent technology frightened the merely mediocre. Who we let gain power. Handcuffs were applied by pigs. Who we let to gain power. That's all there is to be said.


      There was a time when JPL and MRI lured the brightest from all over the world into the country. Now they all get scared away. If anybody wants to meet me nowadays, I call them back to Europe. There's no way that I'd be traveing to the US anytime soon.

      I know quite a lot of stuff that'd be deemed harmful to the US. Like logic, evolution, security related stuff. Maybe not grammar. Screw that. 30 years ago that was a completely different thing. Jimmy Carter. A downhill race ever since.

      Who actually does vote those into office that are eternally scared of the stuff they don't understand themselves? Could you please strip them off their right to vote?

      --
      20 minutes into the future
    4. Re:Scare quotes by Moryath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Carter was a disaster as a president. However, the Republicans since 1980 have made a point of nominating the dimmest bulbs in the box.

      Reagan? Already senile. His was a Weekend At Bernie's presidency.
      Bush the Elder? A retread, complete with barfing on foreign dignitaries.
      Then they moved on. BobDole... yeah. Shrub the Younger, whose intelligence could be measured in scoops of raisin bran. McCain, who while a "war hero" from years prior basically campaigned like a zombie.

      And then we get the "brain trust" of this latest batch. Herman "couldn't even make an edible pizza" Cain. Mitt "robber baron" Romney. Rick Sanctimonous, champion of home schooling and anti-science rants. Michelle "hehe, I went into law because my hubby said we were done having babies and I should make myself useful in the daytimes before his nightly blowjob" Bachmann. And of course Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, who "historians" who have a running bet to top each other and misrepresent American history in a worse way.

      A friend of mine has a better word for these sorts of idiots - they're known as Brain Donors. Kind of like kidney donors, they obviously donated a long while ago and somehow are alive without a functioning brain.

    5. Re:Scare quotes by Moryath · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just realized I'm forgetting one. That one guy... uh... what was his name... uh... thinking...it's on the tip of my tongue... can't quite remember... sorry, lost it. "Oops."

    6. Re:Scare quotes by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is it really so hard to believe that a mechanism connected to what looks like a cell phone could be a bomb?

      Ask someone who has been in Iraq and Afghanistan (or Israel for that matter) what is frequently used to detonate IEDs remotely on command.

      Honestly, I know that there are some pretty ineffective TSA regulations out there, and that there's a lot of security theater going on, but I'd rather look like a fool than let hundreds of people die on my watch. And frankly, what do you think many homemade bombs are, if not science projects taken to a murderous extreme?

      Perhaps this was an overreaction, but nothing in the article provides facts other than the indignation of those inconvenienced.

      I do have to wonder, though, where can we draw the line where stupid things like this don't happen to innocent people, but that real terrorists can't take advantage of those lines.

    7. Re:Scare quotes by dr2chase · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As I said to someone else, back when the Lite-Brite Mooninites panicked the Boston Police, the first rule of making a bomb, is to not make it look like a bomb. That's why IEDs get buried, stuffed into dead dogs, what have you. Around here, if you wanted to hide a bomb in plain sight, you'd stick it in a crumpled Dunkin Donuts bag.

    8. Re:Scare quotes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Isn't a Dunkin Donuts bag the first place a cop would look?

    9. Re:Scare quotes by Sun · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Didn't read TFA, so I'll answer based on the "data" here.

      It's perfectly legitimate to assume that this is a bomb. Perfectly reasonable assumption to make. What isn't reasonable is the actual reaction.

      Close half the airport? Why? Just taxi the airplane to somewhere remote and examine the object there. An airplane on the ground simply will not go up in flames due to a small bomb (and even if it does, if it's in a remote corner of the airport, let it).

      Detain the people involved? Sure. But why handcuff students?

      And, yes, I live in Israel. And, yes, I simply fail to see such a thing causing such a reaction here.

      Shachar

  2. Number of actual terrorists blocked by TSA by cpu6502 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Zero.

    Number of people nude Xrayed or sexually groped (on their breasts or crotch) or strip-searched or locked in glass jails for carrying breast milk or ..... (this list could go on several pages).

    Millions.

    I hope none of those machines were malfunctioning and ejected lethal doses. They are never checked. TIME TO END THE TSA. And the Fed (give the power back to the State central banks).

    --
    My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    1. Re:Number of actual terrorists blocked by TSA by bonch · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The TSA sucks, but I can't say I disagree with their response in this case. The device is described as a robot-like device with exposed wires, resembling a handmade explosive device. According to the statement in the article, the TSA determined that the device was not harmful, the airport reopened, and everything went back to normal. That seems like what is supposed to happen.

      The Dallas City Hall statement in the article:

      A commercial flight which originated in Kansas City arrived at Love Field this afternoon and unloaded passengers. The next flight crew boarded to prep the aircraft for the next flight when a robotic device was discovered on the plane and the crew notified authorities. Air Marshals along with Dallas Love Field officers detained 11 passengers related to the device. It was determined that the device was not dangerous and was a student’s science project. The student was traveling with fellow students and a professor. That student told authorities the robot was accidentally left on the plane. The airport was temporarily shut down until the device could be determined it was not a threat. Gate #12 has reopened and airport operations are returning to normal.

      That doesn't change my opposition to the groping and scanning, of course. But this story seems just a little overblown. I think an airport would have reacted this way regardless of the existence of the TSA.

    2. Re:Number of actual terrorists blocked by TSA by ClioCJS · · Score: 5, Insightful

      SO "Exactly what you want them to do" is fine a bomb AFTER the flight is over?

      --
      -Clio
      Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
      Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
    3. Re:Number of actual terrorists blocked by TSA by ebh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I like that. Who needs bombs when you can effectively DDoS the airport?

    4. Re:Number of actual terrorists blocked by TSA by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Informative

      Terrorists have always been forced to disguise their bombs. That didn't help the people on Pan Am flight 103. The reason the two terrorists you mention failed was that they tried to light something on fire with other people around. The TSA had no role whatsoever in foiling those plots.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    5. Re:Number of actual terrorists blocked by TSA by HapSlappy_2222 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think the fact that it was *left* on the plane means that someone in the TSA already decided it was ok to be on the plane in the first place. In fact, it was judged safe enough that it could be a carry-on, which would be a requirement to be "accidentally left on the plane" (checked luggage would have made it to the carousel with nobody ending up detained, or outright lost forever).

      You'd think that there would be a pink sticker or some shit for nutty stuff that's already passed a first screening. I can tell you, as a guy that carries various odd electronic equipment all over the country, it'd be nice to earn some sort of reward for convincing the apathetic screener that what I'm carrying onto the plane is, indeed, a very expensive spectrophotometer and not an evil pilot killing death ray machine, complete with a USB strangling cable for those desperation fallback plans (please, please stop fucking with ... err vigorously inspecting... that device, sir...).

      Incidentally, I flew a couple years back, and had to give up my $0.99 nail clippers that I'd forgotten I'd put in my pocket. Apparently I could have clipped the pilots' fingernails too short until he bled to death...? They didn't even have the file/stabby bits on em. Still, only $0.99 and I knew better, so d'oh. What pissed me the fuck off, though: I went to a shop on the "glad that's over" side of security to get a book and some chips prior to boarding my flight, and guess what I saw? The same exact fucking brand of stabby-less nail clippers for $4.99. I half wondered if they were MY clippers, and that security took so long because they needed time to repackage them for re-sale to me.

    6. Re:Number of actual terrorists blocked by TSA by dr2chase · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Mod parent up please. And add to that, cockpit doors are now reinforced.

      Also had a brief demonstration this weekend of what a pilot can do to incapacitate passengers. We had a go-around at our landing, first time I've ever done one. Pilots were not trying hard to be annoying or unpleasant, but the down-down-down then up-up-up made my tummy not very happy. A few more of those, I'd have probably been sick, and I'm sure I was not the only one. Imagine if the pilots were trying -- "fasten your seatbelts, or else".

  3. Re:You're looking in the wrong place by characterZer0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The terrorists are strip-searching people with judicial approval.

    --
    Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
  4. Science!!! by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 5, Funny

    They grounded us with science...

  5. Re:You're looking in the wrong place by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The terrorists are laughing up their sleeves.

  6. Re:Earth to Absent-minded Professor. Come in pleas by cowboy76Spain · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just to be the devil's advocate, imagine the following scenario.

    Professor reaches TSA, shows the package, passes it through X-ray / opens it to show there is no chemical / explosive, and answers questions to the fully satisfaction of TSA (yes I am teacher these are the children I teach...).

    Sometime later, someone else (who of course has not been told that there was such teacher with such object in the previous flight) finds the surprise. Even if the artifact was competently investigated by the TSA, the people who found it probably had no way to verify that ---> panic button.

    To me, this article is bussiness as usual, and per se (the devil lies in details) it does not show up any incompetence / abuse

    --
    Why can't /. have a rich-text editor? Editing your own HTML is so XXth century.
  7. Re:When it comes to security by Mitreya · · Score: 5, Informative

    If everybody on Slashdot gets an old phone, opens it up and leaves it on a plane...

    Then everybody on slashdot will get detained, probed and then TSA will request additional funding based on the spikes in detaining/probing/confiscations.
    Seriously, there is no positive outcome here. I think those people were handcuffed to create an appearance of hard work. TSA hasn't caught a single terrorist in over a decade of existence. The fact that they are still getting (increased) funding is hard to imagine.

  8. Re:When it comes to security by krept · · Score: 5, Funny

    TSA hasn't caught a single terrorist in over a decade of existence. The fact that they are still getting (increased) funding is hard to imagine.

    That means it's working!

    --
    None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
  9. Re:When it comes to security by Cramer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't fear, it's pure stupid. They got it through airport security, on to a plane, flew to their destination, and *now*, suddenly, it's a f***ing danger to the entire state of Texas. Those TSA morons just showed stupid they are and how much they can over react. There used to be this thing called "Lost and Found", but today, if you leave anything anywhere around an airport, you're a Terrorist(tm).