Sandals. A baseball hat. An adorable stuffed panda. They all sat on a table in Ronald Reagan National Airport, and they all hid potentially deadly explosives.
They weren’t the real thing but mock-ups of the kind of items the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has discovered over the years.
“There was a shoe-bomber, this is why you have to take off your shoes,” said Lisa Farbstein, a TSA spokeswoman. “There was a liquid explosives bomber.”
That’s why passengers to this day have a limit on the amount of liquids, gels and aerosols they can carry onto a flight.
Farbstein said there’s still some confusion among the flying public of what is considered in gels or liquids.
“If you can spill it, spray it, pump it or spread it,” she said, it’s among the items restricted to 3.4 ounces.
Any container larger than that has to be stowed in your checked bags, Farbstein said.
Ahead of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Monday’s demonstration by the TSA was punctuated with the routine security announcements at the airport that’s just miles from where the Pentagon was struck on that sunny September morning.
Farbstein points out that there are young TSA agents who were born after the attacks happened.
“Anywhere that was immediately impacted, whether it was New York City, whether it was Arlington, Virginia, or whether it was western Pennsylvania, I think those individuals tend to think of it more personally,” Farbstein said.
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