How Did These Men Even Get on a Plane?

One man was stopped by airport security screeners in Birmingham, Alabama for additional screening because of concerns about his “bulky clothing,” not to mention the $7,000 in cash he was carrying. Once they opened up his checked luggage they found a cell phone lashed with tape to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three other cell phones taped together, a box cutter, three large knives and several watches taped in a bundle.

Oh, and when he arrived in Chicago, they learned that he had checked his luggage on a flight to Washington’s Dulles airport with a connection to Dubai and then Yemen, but didn’t board the flight himself.

That’s the story so far of two men detained in Amsterdam after boarding a flight from Chicago’s O’Hare airport in what some experts have said could have been a dry run for a later terror plot. None of the materials confiscated from the checked luggage were considered dangerous, but certainly suspicious and officials are trying to figure out just what the men had in mind. NPR reported that neither man appears to have ties to Al Queada or the terror groups affiliates.

While the men successfully checked bags onto a flight they did not board, the flight with one of the men’s luggage was returned to its gate where the bags were removed and checked for evidence of explosives, which were not found. Neither was on a no-fly list.

Are you surprised these men were able to board a flight?