How fun! Once, after climbing around in a dusty old church attic like this, I had to head straight to the airport for a flight. Barely made it on because something in the dust kept flagging as dangerous. They were using a test strip on my backpack and clothing and analyzing it in some kind of machine. Stressful as I was already pressed for time! Finally got a clean test and they let me through.
These things are also notoriously prone to false negatives. I know a person who uses the same laptop briefcase to take their handgun to the local indoor shooting range, with magazines and ammo, and also uses that bag as a carry on for travel.
The bag goes right next to the shooting bench at the firing line. It presumably gets a decent amount of powder residue on it, and yet it's been swabbed several times and not set off anything. My buddy is scrupulously careful to remove anything non-airport-approved before taking it on a trip, so the fact that something "bad" was previously contained in the bag has been double/triple checked to be absent before they show up to the airport.
Heard similar stories from many people. I have my own--
I was at a range shooting this old revolver with worn seals. Every shot, unburnt (or sometimes burning) powder was flying backward onto my face and arms. I basically took a gunpowder shower.
Got up like 6 hours later and went to the airport to get on a plane. Got swabbed. Came back negative. Got on the plane.
So... yeah, not really sure what the swabs are doing. I have to assume it's more an issue of "they're not intending to detect that" than "failures to detect" because otherwise the repeated misses here are just a little too big to believe.
Most likely there is no quality control for the security process so no one has noticed that the swabs aren't working properly. Most such processes do not have any QA or QC as far as I can tell and the people actually doing the work have no interest in the effectiveness of the process or influence over it.
The swabs are looking for mercury as well as nitrates and things. A small bit of mercury can do a lot of damage to an airframe - nitrates too of course, but in larger quantities.
If you've been around mercury vapor, you'll set off alarms at the airport. Old church attics are often quite heavy metal.
Also, airports in places with free/open gun culture tend to have their weak spots, I'd imagine, when it comes to false positives ..
grahamburger · · focus · HN ↗
walrus01 · · focus · HN ↗
The bag goes right next to the shooting bench at the firing line. It presumably gets a decent amount of powder residue on it, and yet it's been swabbed several times and not set off anything. My buddy is scrupulously careful to remove anything non-airport-approved before taking it on a trip, so the fact that something "bad" was previously contained in the bag has been double/triple checked to be absent before they show up to the airport.
nucleardog · · focus · HN ↗
I was at a range shooting this old revolver with worn seals. Every shot, unburnt (or sometimes burning) powder was flying backward onto my face and arms. I basically took a gunpowder shower.
Got up like 6 hours later and went to the airport to get on a plane. Got swabbed. Came back negative. Got on the plane.
So... yeah, not really sure what the swabs are doing. I have to assume it's more an issue of "they're not intending to detect that" than "failures to detect" because otherwise the repeated misses here are just a little too big to believe.
ninalanyon · · focus · HN ↗
MomsAVoxell · · focus · HN ↗
If you've been around mercury vapor, you'll set off alarms at the airport. Old church attics are often quite heavy metal.
Also, airports in places with free/open gun culture tend to have their weak spots, I'd imagine, when it comes to false positives ..