2 guns stopped at Pittsburgh International Airport amid record-setting travel season
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Two guns were found during a three-day stretch at the Pittsburgh International Airport's security checkpoints, the Transportation Security Administration said on Tuesday.
A man from Claysville, Pennsylvania, is accused of bringing a loaded .40 caliber handgun in his carry-on bag on Friday. A few days later on Sunday, TSA agents said they found a .38 caliber pistol in the carry-on bag of a woman from Weirton, West Virginia.
Both of the travelers can expect a "costly" federal civil penalty, the TSA said.
"Travelers need to pay much closer attention to the items that they have inside their carry-on bags," said Karen Keys-Turner, the TSA's federal security director for the airport. "Travelers are responsible for the contents of their carry-on bags. In addition, responsible gun owners know where their firearms are at all times and they know not to bring them to a security checkpoint.
TSA officers have stopped 10 firearms at the Pittsburgh airport's checkpoints since mid-June, Keys-Turner said. Not only is bringing a gun a threat to the airport environment, but Keys-Turner said it also slows down checkpoint lines.
"When we detect a firearm via the X-ray unit, the checkpoint lane and conveyor belt come to complete standstill until the police arrive and remove the firearm, the carry-on bag and all of the other traveler's belongings and remove them and the traveler from the checkpoint. Meanwhile, other travelers who were in line were forced to wait until the incidents are cleared, delaying them from getting through the checkpoint and to their gate."
Passengers can travel with guns, but they have to be unloaded, packed in a hard-sided locked case and declared at the check-in counter. The gun then travels in the belly of the plane so nobody can have access to it during the flight.
The TSA said it's seeing a "significant spike" in checkpoint volume at the Pittsburgh airport this summer, exceeding pre-pandemic levels by thousands of travelers a day. The TSA said there were 15 days in June where it screened more than 18,000 passengers, upwards of 6,000 more than the airport saw on peak days last year.
The Pittsburgh International Airport issued a travel alert last month, telling people with early morning flights to come up to 3 hours early. The airport attributes the boom in passengers to an increase in flights and a bigger appetite for summer travel post COVID. The TSA has made changes to try and move the lines along.