If you’re trying to blow up an airplane, and you’re hip and plan to use liquids to take down the silver bird, the following tips may be useful to you:
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Should your liquid containers not all fit into the one-litre resealable bag, just use two. Leave one of them in your bag and put the other into the plastic box through the x-ray machine. It seems like security checkers don’t notice or care.
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Alternatively, if you need a few more millilitres of liquid or gel, put it in a tube or bottle and write on it Novartis, Roche, Bayer, or any other known manufacturer of pharmaceuticals; make up fancy names or use existing ones. Be creative, although you don’t have to. Even though the EU regulations dictate that only prescription medicine is exempt from the volume restrictions, noone has yet confiscated my tube of Voltaren, nor questioned it, and I’ve had it with me on every trip for three years, at least. If desiging your own tube is too much, empty out an existing tube and refill it.
Baby food containers work too, but then you ought to bring a baby along for credibility.
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If your detonation strategy involves more than one litre of liquid, don’t give up. Writing “100ml” on a 200 millilitre container should fool most of the security checkers. I’ve tried it, taking the label off a 75ml deodorant spraycan and putting it on a 150ml shaving cream can, and at least in Düsseldorf, they seemed pleased.
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If your explosive substance’s amount is indicated in weight rather than volume (like yoghurt), be prepared to lie. Should the substance put 150g on the scale, make the label read 100g; the concept of density is beyond the brain capacity of your average checker, and I found it pointless to explain to them that one gramme is very rarely the same amount as one millilitre.
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Consider flying out of a non-German airport, where they won’t let you take just a deodorant spray can and nothing else without a bag; you’ll also have to buy a bag for one Euro in these places, while at Zurich or Dublin airports, you get those bags for free at least. (Remind me why we pay extraordinary amounts of airport taxes again?)
Of course, if you’re serious about blowing up an aircraft, you’re probably not going to need any of the above, as you’ll already have a more convenient way to get your substances on the plane. At the checkpoint, you’ll behave like the perfect citizen abiding by all rules; you wouldn’t want to arouse suspicion, now would you?
PS: this post purposely avoids the use of the word “terrorist”.
PPS: of all the great experiences in airports this week, I especially loved how passengers, who checked in at the counters (and had to present their passports there), were again checked after border control in Düsseldorf, while passengers like myself, who used the quick check-in terminals, were just waved through.
NP: Disturbed: The Sickness
