Oops! Unplugged Metal Detector Unnoticed by TSA

Caroline Morse Teel is the Managing Editor for SmarterTravel Media. Follow her on Instagram @TravelWithCaroline.

Caroline joined Boston-based SmarterTravel in 2011 after living in Ireland, London, and Manhattan. She's traveled to all seven continents, jumped out of planes, and bungeed off bridges in the pursuit of a good story. She loves exploring off-the-beaten path destinations, anything outdoorsy, and all things adventure.

Her stories have also appeared online at USA Today, Business Insider, Huffington Post, Yahoo, Boston.com, TripAdvisor, Buzzfeed, Jetsetter, Oyster, Airfarewatchdog, and others.

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Ever feel like the TSA is just going through the motions at the airport? This story probably won’t help with that image. The NY Post reports that a TSA agent at New York’s JFK Airport failed to notice that his metal detector was unplugged, and sent hundreds of passengers through unscreened. After the mistake was finally detected, the terminal had to be evacuated and two planes were brought back from the gate so that hundreds of passengers could be rescreened.

The screener, identified as Alija Abdul Majed, allegedly didn’t realize that none of the detector’s lights were flashing as passengers came through, and said that he had no idea how long the machine had been unplugged for.

This was not a good weekend for New York-area TSA agents, as about 600 people had to be evacuated from La Guardia Airport after an electrical socket burst into flames when an X-ray machine was plugged into it. Hey, at least that one was going to be plugged in!

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