Man Carries Loaded Gun Onto Plane — TSA Doesn’t Notice

Brittany Jones-Cooper
·Reporter
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Blake Alford didn’t realize he had packed a gun in his carry-on, and apparently, the TSA didn’t realize it either. (Photo: Thinkstock)

A man flying out of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport was able to get a loaded gun through security and onto a plane.

Blake Alford, a retired truck driver from Jonesboro, Ga., says he didn’t realize that he had packed his gun in his carry-on when he was flying on Nov. 5.

After the bag went through an X-ray machine, Alford boarded the Southwest Airlines flight without any interruption. To his shock, he discovered the gun in his bag only after arriving at his hotel in Chicago.

“I’d just forgotten it was there,” he told The Daily Mail. “I travel a fair bit, but I have never done anything like this before.”

Alford has a carry permit, but not for carrying on planes. On his flight back to Atlanta, Alford unloaded the semi-automatic weapon and put it in his checked bag.

Related: FAA Employee Arrested After Flying with Gun in Carry-on

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A TSA agent at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. (Photo: AP)

After arriving back home, Alford says he came forward with his story to let other travelers know about his experience, and to encourage the TSA to tighten its procedures.

“How could the TSA not have spotted it?” Alford said to The Daily Mail. “Especially as it was just a few days after the Russian plane blew up.”

This shocking incident occurred before the terrorist attacks in Paris and Beiruit, but now more than ever, travelers around the world are concerned with their safety, especially in the air.

In response to the incident, the TSA said it is investigating what happened, and plans to retrain employees if it appears that standard procedure was not followed.

“When our employees fail to meet standards, we hold them appropriately accountable,” said the TSA in a statement. “TSA employs a robust security system involving multiple layers of security, both seen and unseen, to protect the traveling public, including a well-trained frontline workforce, state-of-the-art technologies, intelligence analysis and information sharing, and explosives detection.”

In the first 10 moths of 2015, the TSA has discovered 2,447 firearms in carry-on bags at checkpoints across the nation.

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