Travel Missteps: Security Scare

I’m currently on the second of three trips this month! But earlier this month I was in California for work, and on the way home triggered a massive security response at John Wayne Airport. You know…the usual.

Fearing traffic, I got to the airport very early. That is when I realized Orange County Airport is pretty small and that I had a full bottle of water still to drink. So I found a bench and sat for an hour before heading through security.

The bench I picked was occupied by a 40-50’s gentleman with his stuff strewn all over. He was on the phone and trying to eat at the same time. He moved some of his belongings out of the way for me to sit. After about 10 minutes, the man packed his things away and went through security. I didn’t think much of it as I was busy editing photos on my phone.

But when I looked up, I noticed a smallish carry on bag wedged slightly behind the bench. I quickly got up and reported it to a TSA agent. I didn’t think it was a bomb…but I wasn’t going to continue to sit right next to it. So I moved to a bench further down the hall…and waited. I still had plenty of time before I needed to get through security…and I was curious. I’ve reported other unattended bags before…but once the owner (an tired family man with quintuplets) returned in time, the other time the DIA employee I reported to was like “Eh, I’m sure the owner will return” and then went back to reading her paper.

So seeing the TSA agent’s eyes go wide, I was interested in watching how this would play out.

First, multiple security agents in full tactical gear descended the terminal. They told the people who had sat on the bench after me to move. At first they didn’t want to move, but you could see the agent point to the bag. I’ve never seen people stand up so fast. The bench was also near an escalator, door, and elevator, and the path to get to the TSA line. So multiple agents were stationed to re-direct people away from the bag.

Then they did an eye check of the bag, and wanded it. It showed it had metal in it (probably a laptop, but also could be a bomb). So they made a bigger perimeter. I watched as people tried to sit on the bench, or walk nearby and agents aggressively told them to move away.

After a little while, more agents arrived and you could tell they were monitoring all of the passengers on either side of the security. I saw the TSA agent point to me at one point, but I was just calmly sitting on my new bench still drinking more water.

After about 45 minutes, I saw Mr. Forgot-His-Bag rush out of the secure area and towards the bag. This didn’t go well with the security agents. They raised their voices at him and made him step back. You could hear the man say it was his bag, but because it had been unattended for over an hour they had to go through proper processes and held the man back aways.

Then an excited black lab bomb-sniffing dog was brought in. He and his handlers circled the bag, sniffed it, and the dog showed no signs. They then unzipped the bag, taking things out, before finally putting everything back. Before giving it to the man, they made him fill out some forms, and you could tell the agents were telling the guy off for being so careless. The guy, probably about to miss his flight, was so embarrassed and stricken.

Finally, they gave him back his bag, and I watched him run off to try to get through security again. He was a TSA Pre-Check passenger, which strangely had the longest line. You could see the stress as he went through security and then ran off to his gate.

Soo….yeah I did what the voice system said and reported an unattended bag and spent over an hour watching the aftermath. What do you guys do when you go to the airport too early?

Travel Missteps is an every-other week series on how sometimes part of the journey is making mistakes and getting lost.