If your suitcase gets damaged at the airport, it’s not uncommon for staff to offer an on-the-spot replacement. It turns out this can be a bad idea. Earlier today, a Sydney Airport customer was accidentally given a replacement bag that contained 230 grams of plastic explosives. Oops.
This potentially disastrous mix-up was caused after the Australian Federal Police forgot to remove the aforementioned bomb from an unclaimed suitcase during a training exercise with bomb-sniffing dogs. Oblivious airport staff later gave the bag to a woman whose own bag had been damaged during a flight.
Thankfully, the device wasn’t live and the woman discovered it without incident. The police have since issued a public apology. The canine instructor who left the explosives at the airport is now the subject of an investigation.
Granted, this isn’t the sort of mishap that occurs on a regular basis but it remains sobering proof that you shouldn’t blindly trust authority figures to know exactly what they’re doing. Assuming the people in control are infallible is a good way to have things blow up in your face.
[Via Gizmodo]
Comments
6 responses to “Be Wary When Airlines Offer You A Replacement Suitcase”
And if the woman hadn’t found the bomb herself, then went to the airport with the bomb in her suitcase, she’d be in all kind of trouble. I doubt they’d have believed the truth then
Boggy board bag, wait till you hear this one?
So did the dog find it or not?
I’d gladly accept a replacement bag that was used in a drug-sniffing training exercise.
Agreed, the headline should read “be sure to have any free suitcase checked out carefully”. 230g isn’t a lot, but plastic explosives are hard to come by… I do wonder what sort of money the local rebels motorcycle club would have given her for that sort of explosives? … If nothing else, i expect you could exchange it for an equivalent weight in weed.
So the airport gives away luggage that they don’t own? Is this lost luggage? I wonder what happens to the original contents? Lots of questions…