Causing a person to miss their flight

Mar 10, 2008 15:58 GMT  ·  By

We've often heard of blokes in uniforms becoming highly suspicious when encountering new tech. It is the case of one guy who missed his flight for carrying an Apple MacBook Air. What the TSA found particularly strange when he rolled it on the conveyor belt was that the laptop featured no drive and no visible ports. Oh, Steve, see what you've done?! Had you not compromised so much on ports, this would have never happened.

Jokes aside, this is not the first time the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) is mocked by Apple's products. Last time, we heard there was a holdup because of the TSA, a Nike+iPod sports kit was involved. That small tablet with two symbols on it does look strange. For all the TSA knew back then, it could have been a powerful mind controlling device brought to Earth by an intelligent species from far away, who chose that exact person to use for deploying their attack.

And this is not the first time people in suits are dazzled by Apple products. Remember the 1G iMac that dazzled Danish police?

But back to today's story involving a MacBook Air that dazzled the TSA people. Engadget says that upon finding that the MacBook Air was too slim and too different inside (having scanned the thing) to be a normal laptop (or even a laptop at all), the TSA removed it from the flow, put it aside using a 10-feet-long robotic arm (ok, the robotic arm is a lie), and held the man for questioning.

The TSA guy in charge with staring at the screen to notice strange stuff was puzzled by the "lack of a drive" and the complete absence of "ports on the back," according to the tech-based web site. During the procedure, the laptop owner's flight took off into the blue leaving more tech savvy guys around the office explaining to the respective employee what an SSD was. In the end, the Air owner was allowed to take his aluminum tablet with him and he was on his way.

Jokes aside again (it's really hard not to, honest to God), the TSA's job is indeed to protect everyone booking a flight from anything, and if something as small as that Nike+ sensor looks as if it could be a weapon of some sort, or a gas container, or a detonator, by all means, let them search our guts if they have to. I'd rather miss my flight than die during it.

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TSA folks on the job
The Nike  sensor
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