14 DAY TRIAL // Security agents at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago discovered two World War I artillery shells in checked baggage while screening the suitcases that arrived on a flight from London.
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials say the bags belonged to two teenagers, aged 16 and 17, who were returning from a school field trip to Europe and took the shells as souvenirs from a former artillery range next to a museum in France.
As the Daily Mail informs, the incident prompted the evacuation of the airport by the FBI until a bomb disposal crew determined the munitions were inert and posed no danger. However, the projectiles could have caused a huge explosion if found to be live.
A spokesman for the TSA said, “Large munitions are not permitted to be brought on board planes, in carry-on or checked baggage. Small arms ammunition, including under .75 calibre and shotgun shells, can be packed in checked baggage in accordance with airline policies.”
The strange part in this story is that the pair of schoolboys somehow managed to smuggle the shells on to a plane at Heathrow Airport and fly to Chicago, where the unusual cargo was eventually discovered.
It's still unclear how they managed to elude security at the London airport and sneak the 75mm (3 inches) rusty munitions on their flight to the US. It is also unknown how they transported the shells from France to Britain before boarding at Heathrow.
Unsurprisingly, the incident raised serious questions about security at Heathrow Airport. So, security chiefs were forced to defend their procedure and claimed that the airport's scanners were so sophisticated they were able to tell the projectiles were harmless.
“We have the world’s most advanced airport scanning equipment. It is designed to pick up actual threats such as explosive material, whereas these were inert items that posed no threat,” a spokeswoman for Heathrow said.
The historical artifacts were seized by TSA, and the teenagers were questioned by security officials. They were released without charges and then headed to a flight to Seattle.
Experts who analyzed the explosive projectiles confirmed they were French and dated back to the First World War.
Another bomb-related incident was recorded on Saturday in London, when a bomb disposal squad carried out an emergency evacuation at Chertsey Museum after discovering that a World War II shell donated by a pensioner was still live.