Airport security

by N.B., economist.com
July 2nd 2012 9:37 AM

JOHN GROSS says he was going through airport security, trying to fly home to Indianapolis with his grandfather's ashes, when a clumsy Transportation Security Administration officer left human remains all over the ground:

"They opened up my bag, and I told them, 'Please, be careful. These are my grandpa's ashes,'" Gross told [Indianapolis ABC affiliate] RTV6's Norman Cox. "She picked up the jar. She opened it up.

"I was told later on that she had no right to even open it, that they could have used other devices, like an X-ray machine. So she opened it up. She used her finger and was sifting through it. And then she accidentally spilled it."

The TSA requires, quite reasonably, that all crematory remains be x-rayed. But airport security agents aren't supposed to open containers that contain crematory remains—probably to avoid just this sort of incident. "Out of respect to the deceased and their family and friends, under no circumstances will an officer open the container even if the passenger requests this be done," according to the agency's website. The good news here is that the TSA has reasonable rules about this sort of thing. The bad news is that they don't appear to have been followed.

Mr Gross told the local ABC affiliate that he wanted an apology from the TSA, and he claims he did end up getting an apologetic call from a top TSA official who works at the Florida airport where the incident occurred. But the TSA still seems to be disputing Mr Gross' account of the supposed accident—it issued a statement earlier this week saying "the circumstances, as explained by the passenger, are inconsistent with what we believe transpired"—and unless surveillance video is released, it's hard to know for certain who's telling the truth.

So far, the TSA's statements on this matter have been vague; a TSA blog post on crematory remains, while obviously inspired by this incident, didn't mention it specifically, and the phrase "inconsistent with what we believe transpired" leaves a lot to the imagination. If the agency still maintains that Mr Gross is mistaken about what really happened, it should explain its side of the story in full—and, if possible, release video of the incident.

Original Page: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/06/airport-security-ashes

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