Unknown Dangerous Items in Luggage

Has there ever been a case of someone, at an airport, unknowingly transporting dangerous items in their luggage?

The airport announces every ten minutes a warning to maintain control over your luggage to prevent unknowingly transporting dangerous items. So I’m not asking about someone forgetting about a lighter but the threat of some nefarious person slipping something into your luggage when you’re not looking.

I find the threat hard to believe. A bomber would (or rather has) just book a flight, put the bomb in their luggage, check it on the flight, and then not fly themselves. Putting a bomb into someone else’s luggage is too high risk for detection when the alternative is easier.

Even for nondangerous items, such as what a smuggler would carry seems more Hollywood than real. I can’t see a smuggler running the risk of detection or losing the item by placing it in someone else’s luggage.

If the bomber doesn’t get on the plane, then their checked luggage will be removed from the plane, so that trick is not likely to work.

Yes. I’m aware of at least one such incident. A terrorist duped his girlfriend into carrying a bomb in her luggage in 1986. Fortunately, security detected it.
Cite: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001/09/12/israelisecurity.htm

Random, I couldn’t find anything about the duped girlfriend on that cite but it doesn’t count anyway. She was duped; the boyfriend didn’t slip the bomb into her luggage at the airport when she wasn’t looking.

The Locherby bombing of the PanAm flight was accomplished by the terrorist ingratiating himself to a young lady, and then presenting her with a bomb containing ghetto blaster as a going away gift.

  1. Look again. Here’s a quote from my link:
  1. How does it not “count”? Your question was:

The answer, as I said, was “yes”.

Random, okay, I found it. But it is not a case of someone slipping a dangerous item into luggage that was not being watched at the airport. As, Keybo said it was a case of someone being duped. While I don’t have a cite, I dare say the bomb was placed into the luggage while it was being packed, at home.

The airport announcements should say, “Do not allow a loved one to help you pack your luggage.” :eek:

No Pan Am 103 was destroyed by a bomb placed inside unaccompanied baggage by Libyian intelligence officers, there was no unwitting mule. I beleive you are getting confused with another case (mentioned previously):