stopped at Heathrow

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

The security were not happy, I had big boots on that tested positive for evidence of possible home explosive making.
Just so happened that I'd spent several weeks wandering around very rural areas.
There was fertiliser residue on my boots. My boots were hefty because I'd been walking all over the place not because I'd filled the soles with explosives.

At least they had a good reason for my thorough (though not butt search, thank God) search this time.

So, what's been your favourite being stopped by airport security experience?

[lancelot]

See, this is what happens when people go outside for recreational purposes.

Hope you learnt your lesson!

[Aenlic]

Now you're on the list! Odds are that you'll probably end up on the Bush no-fly list, too. And next time, you'll probably be subject to a very uncomfortable and invasive probe of your nether regions. Life in the modern world. Fun, isn't it?

[Adrian II]

Old Dutch proverb say 'countryside for cows only'.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

I'm very glad that I never did change my name to Mohammed.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

A2:
do you know just how much I want to believe you?

[Adrian II]

A2:
do you know just how much I want to believe you?

In my experience, the countryside generally becomes tolerable after two or three drinks.

[Ser Clegane]

So, what's been your favourite being stopped by airport security experience?

1) About 15 years ago when flying from Seattle to Frankfurt, after a visit at the family I stayed with as an exchange student a couple of years before. I was in quite a hurry (we had been in a traffic jam) and the security went through my hand-luggage taking out a small box that was given to me by my hosts as a gift for my parents. When being asked what was in there, I stupidly gave the only honest answer:
"I have no clue"
Not exactly the statement a security guy likes to hear ... I almost missed my flight that day

2) This is a bit more ... uhm ... personal. My wife and I use condoms for birth control. When going on a business trip I still had a couple of condoms in my toiletries bag (from the last vacation). Of course the security guy decided to go through my toiletries bag in the hand-luggage and pulled out the condoms.
Colleague was also on the trip, standing right next to me in line ... not very difficult to read the thoughts of the security guy and my colleague:
"guy (very obviously due to the laptop) on a business for a couple of days + couple of condoms in the toiletries bag = cheating pig"
Quite embarrassing, and my wife had a jolly good laugh when I returned home and told her the story

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

those are good.

The first one reminds me of the joy of having Christmas presents unwrapped for me at the airport (these being gifts given to me before travelling so I had no idea what was in them).

[Geoffrey S]

The best I can come up with happened in Athens. We were on a schooltrip to Greece, and on our way back one of my mates kept setting off the detector; he had to remove all metallic objects, including his belt. Now, he was wearing one of these huge baggy pair of jeans (like skaters used to wear alot), and while walking through the detector set it off again. He raised his hands to be scanned again, whereupon his trousers promptly positioned themselves around his ankles! Luckily I had my camera ready...

[Kaiser of Arabia]

The security were not happy, I had big boots on that tested positive for evidence of possible home explosive making.
Just so happened that I'd spent several weeks wandering around very rural areas.
There was fertiliser residue on my boots. My boots were hefty because I'd been walking all over the place not because I'd filled the soles with explosives.

At least they had a good reason for my thorough (though not butt search, thank God) search this time.

So, what's been your favourite being stopped by airport security experience?

I know what my least favorite was. Getting whacked in the nuts by that wand.

[bmolsson]

My worst story is not through air port security, but through security at the Israelis embassy in Singapore. The metal detector kept on buzzing and I was not to be let through before everything that made it buzz was taken through the xray machine. Belt, watch, shoes... Still buzzing. I got more and more irritated... Jacket.... Still buzzing.... I got tired, tock off my pants and shirt and went through only in underpants and socks. No buzz. I dressed up and went to register for a badge. My name was at the VIP list and suddenly the Ambassador came running. I had been on the security camera and he had been alerted.
Never the less, I got in to the investment meeting, but I don't know what happened to the guard. I haven't seen him there anymore.......

[Strike For The South]

I was about seven coming back from Boston and I had this small civil war replica toy cannon with me (confederacy of course ) and the security stopped me being seven i almost cried when they took my cannon out of my hands and fondled it my mom said they were looking for drugs but i was still angry

[Red Harvest]

Mine comes from when I was a child. This was during the period after the initial phase of hijackings. I was moving with my parents cross country to a naval base in California. It was my first airplane flight. I had my most prized possessions of the time as a carry on: a metal suitcase style Fort (with cowboys and indians.) Since I was about 9 at the time I also had my favorite set of metal pop gun pistols in it as well...fairly large and quite realistic looking. Needless to say, the Fort ended up flying with the other baggage. I can't imagine what would happen today. Do they give 9 year olds cavity searches?

[Productivity]

So, what's been your favourite being stopped by airport security experience?

Being stopped, taken aside and personally checked at every airport I went to in the US. It's obvious I've made it onto some sort of list (it's not random searching, do a probability calculation and you'll see it gets ridiculously implausible), which means that everytime I go through I get taken aside and searched.

I now avoid travelign to the US - I have nothing against it's people, and I have nothing against random seraches (I support them actually), and I can stretch to targetted searches but I am probably close to the most innocuous person you can get, and I get searched every time. The way the US treats me is poor, so I won't travel there unless I can avoid it.

Sorry for the semi rant, but it really annoys me being viewed as a likely terrorist.

[Red Harvest]

Being stopped, taken aside and personally checked at every airport I went to in the US.

Might be in how/when you booked the flight and who you were or were not with. When I'm flying alone on business and have to book on short notice with credit card on the net...I get singled out for full searches at every damned leg of the flight. It's f****** assinine after the first one or two legs, but it is also obvious that it is some sort of standard profile they have based on age, booking time, booking method, initial flight time, number of folks, luggage etc. Any terrorist with an IQ over 80 could figure out how to probe and circumvent the system. The current profiling does not make me feel more safe.

I try not to fly anything under 500 miles. Isn't worth the time or hassle until I hit about 500. I would rather get the mileage money and save the inconvenience and cancelled flights.

[Productivity]

Do you look even vaguely middle-eastern? Those "Random" checks are almost exclusively done on people who look to be of arab descent.

Nothing like that - as I say I can stretch to targetted searches, but there is nothing to do with me that could be targetted. And after about the 20th search it gets really tiresome. I started getting ready for them after a while - no point wasting their time, they are just doing their job - but it takes quite a bit of the enjoyment out of visiting America for me.

[Red Harvest]

Nothing like that - as I say I can stretch to targetted searches, but there is nothing to do with me that could be targetted. And after about the 20th search it gets really tiresome. I started getting ready for them after a while - no point wasting their time, they are just doing their job - but it takes quite a bit of the enjoyment out of visiting America for me.

Maybe try stripping to your underwear in line while waiting. They would probably wave you on then.

When flying I stopped wearing shoes that had any metal in them (including the metal backed soles.) I also stopped wearing belts and other garments with metal. Nylon zippers and the like make for fairly quick passage. I carry my lowest metal content watch, and I stuff that and change into my carry on before I reach the screeners. Can't do much about the metal still in my ankle but it is non-magnetic (result of taking on three attackers back in my wilder college days, kicked out some teeth, but my ankle wasn't up to the stress.)

Yes it is a serious fun sucker and I can't blame anyone for wanting to avoid it. I used to avoid driving through Oklahoma since the cops always stopped me. They never wrote me any tickets, but they stopped me several trips in a row, so I avoided the state altogether for a few years. I was the right age, riding alone, out of state tags...driving within 5 mph of the speed limit. standard drug carrier profile. I later found that driving 15 mph over resulted in no stops plus I left Oklahoma "sooner."

[Papewaio]

Do they give 9 year olds cavity searches?

This is a joke, if you don't have a sense of humour...

Only on the Vatican City leg.

[ah_dut]

My friend, an arab by the way said something very amusing last year on a school trip.

Security: do you have a bomb?
Him: yes

He got taken aside with the person he was checking in with and we didn't see him for a while...he got there just in time for the flight though

[Shahed]

lol !

[Shahed]

This is a joke, if you don't have a sense of humour...

Only on the Vatican City leg.

I was LMFAO at this.

About the guy who said yes to if he has a bomb.
Not very smart, he might have been shot in the head 7 times for that !

[Ja'chyra]

My friend, an arab by the way said something very amusing last year on a school trip.

Security: do you have a bomb?
Him: yes

He got taken aside with the person he was checking in with and we didn't see him for a while...he got there just in time for the flight though

Not amusing at all, I think someone was charged for that a while back.

Anyway, mine isn't funny at all, got stopped with a knife in my bag because I had been sailing the week before and forgot to take it out of my bag. He just took it off me and said if I wanted it back I would have to check my bag in.

The funniest experience wasn't with customs but during the wait for a connection. I was in Bangkok and we had a wiat for about 9 hours due to changed flights so me and the wife decided to go for a massage, if you have been there you will know that there is a parlour in upstairs in the airport. The wife decided on just a foot massage but I was feeling quite tight so decided to go for a full body massage, and let's I got a bit of a shock when I found out that it really was full body.

[Quid]

Last year coming back from a lovely little holiday in Stockholm I proceeded to the metal detector gate. Nothing unusual in that, of course. I put my bag on the x-ray belt and walked through the gate. Nothing. 'Good, good,' I thought, 'the usual, then'. As I went on to pick up my carry-on bag, the security guy asked politely if I had a knife it. I told him no, that I didn't have a clue what he was on about. So he asked me nicely to open it and put all the contents on the table. I did so without hesitation thinking what it could possibly be that resembled a knife. I stood there for more than 15 minutes trying to find all sorts of things in my bag. But no knife. They put the bag through the x-ray about five times and everytime he told me that there was something that resembled a knife. Logically, I was slightly annoyed by that time and offered him my bag to look through it again as I was clearly too stupid to find things in there. He went through it and after another ten minutes, with a victorious smile on his face, managed to come up with the little Swiss Army pocket knife. You can imagine how much blushing went on right there. 'Well,' I thought, 'I will just have do without the little knife then', and was ready to walk away. He then called me and told me it was ok, gave me the knife back and proceeded to give me directions to the gate.

You can imagine, I wasn't quite sure what to think anymore having wasted valuable duty free shopping time because of the knife only to have it handed back to me. Silly really...

Quid

[English assassin]

Not my story, but a friend who at the time was working for a Japanese bank had to fly to Turkey with a very senior (Japanese) director of the bank.

Turkish customs decided to give them a shake down. My friend specialises in the mid east and former soviet republics so he's used to airport nonsense of all sorts, and knows you just have to let them get on with it. Unfortunately senior Japanese directors of Japanese banks are, it seems, used to more deferential treatment, and he told the Turkish customs officers so in no uncertain terms.

Woosh. My friend finds himself standing alone in a deserted customs hall as the director is bundled into a side room with evilly grinning Turks, a marigold glove and some KY jelly....

[AntiochusIII]

LOL Hilarious thread.

By the way, Ja'chyra. Bangkok is a dangerous city, and a very exotic one at that. Be careful what you asked for. I was born there, so I know what it's about.

I'm too young, anyway, too innocent :P and too non-Arabic to suffer security "abuse."

[Meneldil]

Having long hairs and looking like some gothic guy on hard drugs, I always end up with a few security guys opening all my bags, asking me if I have drugs, alcohol on me. Last time I traveled (I came back from Scotland to Paris) I have been the only guy stopped by the security.

I also have metal in my right arm, and I'm usually arrested at detector gates.

[ShadesPanther]

I've been stopped at almost every airport to have my bags searched. Maybe something to do with having a British passport, Irish accent and located in Northern Ireland...

[BDC]

I'll always remember the lesbian Chinese security guard.

Rather too keen to check the girls when they set the alarm off...

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

I always get stopped and searched (well, U.K./U.S flights).

I have a theory that my shaven head and big boots may fill their possible "white" terrorist suspect quota for the flight.