A passenger flying to Haiti from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, 34 km north of Miami, tried to carry a gun inside a baked chicken onto the plane.
Security officials from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) found a firearm on a scanner that had been tightly wrapped in plastic and then placed inside a chicken.
As you know, firearms are not allowed to be carried in hand luggage. According to aviation regulations, it must be stowed unloaded, and locked in a container with hard walls. Passengers must report firearms to airline staff, and for international flights, additional customs and border control checks must be completed.
In this case, the unnamed passenger did not comply with any of these rules. As a result, she was not only prevented from flying but also detained for possible prosecution.
Last week, the TSA reported that since the beginning of this year, TSA officials have found more than 700 weapons at security checkpoints at Florida airports. The vast majority of them were loaded.
TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz confirmed that the majority of passengers who were found to have firearms in their carry-on luggage have already been arrested or received notices to appear in court. In addition, the TSA has the right to impose a civil penalty of up to $13,910 for such violations.
In ten months of 2022, 120 firearms were seized at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport, second only to Orlando, where 129 handguns and other firearms were found.