Debbie Schlussel: "Snakes on a Plane": Federal Agent Airport Security Experts Say it Could Happen
As the French might say, "Quelle coincidence." Just in time for the Islamic terror plot on British planes, the movie "Snakes on a Plane" comes out, next week.
The movie is about mobsters who manage to get poisonous snakes on a plane and release them to kill a witness in a trial.
When the video of the "Snakes on a Plane" theme song (by Cobra Starship) came out, I linked to it and said the video images of how the snakes were snuck on the plane seemed very implausible. Still, I asked airline security experts and federal agents to tell me if it has ever happened that snakes were snuck on planes, and whether it is possible. A couple of left-wing websites made fun of me over this.
But now federal security experts say it is in fact plausible that poisonous snakes could be snuck on planes and, in fact, have been in some cases.
Said one veteran federal agent involved in airport security and counter-terrorism:
Easy to do. You could hide it in a lead bag. Hell, you could probably stick it in a bag. I doubt if screeners are trained to find these things. When the bag is X-rayed, they'd see the bones and probably wonder what the heck. If the snake was "sedated" you could just carry it on as a "trouser snake" since it won't set off the X-ray.
Said another federal agent whose job was testing airport security for the TSA:
Easy. Just hide them in an opaque container like a film shield bag.
Another federal agent in the know:
I think it would be easy to get a snake on board an aircraft. Just roll it up in one of those Holiday Inn towels.
We'll post our review of the movie, early next Friday Morning.
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More "Snakes on a Plane" stuff here, here, and here.
Posted by Debbie on August 10, 2006 02:49 PM to Debbie Schlussel