Another airport story

[brachal]

My cameras (Bessa R, Leica III) aren't usually a problem, but my bag was pulled in Mexico City last year. The person operating the scanner did not know what my film was (plain old 35mm). Fortunately, her supervisor was old enough to laugh about it.

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

Perhaps they do not understand why such a big piece of metal does not have any electronics in them.

Anyway this week, I hung my cl + voigtlander over my neck and put it in the tray for ex-ray. No problems.

raytoei

 

[Turtle]

hey those swab tests constantly pick up duff hits. On my last flight from Kabul they searched my bag in astounding detail and I knew something was up when they started inspecting seams etc. I explained that I am constantly around people bearing weapons and that I have recently been photographing heroin addicts so traces of either could be present. I was stumped when they said they had a hit on cocaine! They re-swabbed and got another positive. Coke, in Afghanistan... riiiiight, but a hit it was and they had to go through their drills. the whole experience took 45mins before I was allowed on my way.

I used to work with those machines to check for traces (mainly explosives) and they were constantly giving hits on substances that were not present in quantity (i.e. only the trace). All it takes is to shake hands with someone who shook hands with someone, who... then pick up your bag and hey presto, they will get a hit when they swab your zipper puller or handles. Vehicles can pick up traces from mud, driving through stuff and goodness knows where.

 

[robbeiflex]

Been in the same little side office in Frankfurt as well, along with my Rolleiflex. After ensuring its safety by wiping it with a small cloth and checking the cloth for chemicals, the security officer proceeded to compliment me on my taste in cameras, so no hard feelings. A similar experience with a Nikon DSLR did not garner any compliments.

 

[wgerrard]

In Munich this fall, my Bessa R2 and R4 were suspicious on enough on the scanner, that not only were they were taken out of the camera bag for a look-see, but I was also asked to click the shutter on them. I think that the whole process is rather dependent on the individual scanner operator - this is what makes it so frustrating but perhaps makes it safer for us all as they are constantly varying the items checked. Of course, this is probably giving the TSA and its worldwide equivalents more credit than they deserve.

Pretty sure they will vary their pattern to prevent someone taking advantage. After all, if RF's in camera bags were never checked by hand, then the logical thing for any terrorist would be to hide stuff inside a Leica body. This is, I believe, what happened with the recent cases of bombs on flights out of Yemen. Someone noticed that toner cartridges were never hand checked, so they put bombs in toner cartridges.

Local threats and circumstances can also impact procedures at an airport.

 

[--s]

Wherever I went in Europe in the last years, my Leica MP always gets extra attention at the scanner. Meanwhile I take it out of the bag and put it in the tray together with keys, watch etc. to shorten the procedure. They want to have a look inside and hear the shutter work, what is quite understandable on one hand.