The US Transportation Security Administration, TSA, has foiled an air traveler’s unusual attempt to smuggle a gun onto a plane.
The agency took to social media to announce that the traveler stuffed the gun inside a raw chicken so as to make it through the security checkpoint undetected at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
According to The Guardian UK, “the poultry in question was a raw Kikiri Quirch brand baking hen” the cavity of which the handgun, wrapped in brown tape, was lodged.
In a pun-laden post on Instagram captioned, “The plot chickens as we barrel our way closer to Thanksgiving,” TSA said: “We hate to beak it to you here, but stuffing a firearm in your holiday bird for travel is just a baste of time.”
It further reads: “This idea wasn’t even half-baked; it was raw, greasy and obviously unsupervised. The only roast happening here is this poor packing choice!”
The incident occurred at the checked baggage scanning facility in Terminal 4 of the airport around 6 a.m. on Sept. 27, TSA spokesperson R. Carter Langston wrote in an email to the Washington Post.
The pun didn’t stop on Instagram.
On the agency’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, TSA (agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security) shared the images along with more lighthearted jokes, something it has come to be known for on social media.
“There’s a personal fowl here,” tweeted TSA, to which a Twitter user responded, quite comically, with: “Shoulda called the butterball hotline for directions.”
Most responses to the TSA’s post were equally jokey, making light of a potentially dicey situation.
The Florida airport incident isn’t an uncommon scenario although the previous ones do not specifically have to do with stuffing guns into chickens.
In 2021, TSA caught 5972 firearms at airport checkpoints.
On Sept. 6, TSA announced a woman was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport’s checkpoint after she tried to board her flight with a loaded handgun hidden behind the lining of her carry-on suitcase.
The list of the things that TSA agents have had to confiscate from passengers are wide.
According to news outlet Today, they include a chainsaw, a table saw, a preponderance of throwing stars, a bag filled with 80 pounds of marijuana, hidden live eels and endangered dead seahorses, a tube of lipstick that concealed a knife, a walking cane that concealed a sword and last but not least, a human skull.
The TSA’s has been posting on its Instagram since June 2013, the outlet added.
The account’s tongue-in-cheek approach to reminding the public of travel safety earned the agency three 2018 Webby Awards and 1.1 million followers on Instagram.
The awards honor excellence on the Internet,
“Feather you like it or not, there are rules for traveling with guns and ammunition,” TSA posted on Instagram, pointing to extensive guidelines on proper packaging info on its website.
“So, don’t wing it.”
