Airport Security a huge joke

Wow, a new low! This could be an Onion article, fo real.

Transformers shirt gets jet ban
By ANDY CRICK
Published: 02 Jun 2008


AIRPORT guards stopped a man boarding a plane — for wearing a Transformers T-shirt showing a cartoon gun.

Brad Jayakody, 30, was shocked when he was told to change his top if he wanted to catch his flight from Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

IT consultant Brad — on a British Airways trip with four colleagues to Dusseldorf, Germany — asked to see the security chief.

He thought the boss would "see sense" — but he backed up the decision and threatened him with ARREST. Aussie-born Brad said: "My mate set off the alarms and was searched.

"But then the guy told me to stop and said ‘you cannot get on the plane because there is a gun on your T-shirt’."

The top has the Transformers film character Optimus Prime on the front.

Brad, of Bayswater, West London, added: "It’s a cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. What was I going to do, use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?

"I was flabbergasted. I thought the supervisor would come over and see sense, but he didn’t. After I changed he said if I changed back I would be arrested."

A spokesman for Heathrow operator BAA said: "If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it.

"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category."

Last year Gatwick guards made a woman hand over a beef sandwich before boarding and last week a PhD student was stopped for wearing a gun-shaped charm necklace at an airport in Canada.