At IGI, flyer guzzles honey to defuse explosive charges

New Delhi: The security officials at the IGI Airport found themselves in a rather sticky situation on Sunday morning. They detained a passenger for carrying what they initially claimed were explosives, but which eventually turned out to be honey.
According to sources, Chuk Lay Hoon, a Singapore national, was travelling on Air India flight AI 480 from Delhi to Singapore. His bag had reached the third level of the in-line baggage check system when the screener of the Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd (DIAL) presumably identified explosives in the bag. He alerted the CISF immediately who came and inspected the bag with an explosive-trace-detector machine. This machine identified the suspicious object in the bag as 70% explosive.
The passenger was immediately summoned to identify the bag and display its contents. "The man was called down and he was initially quite surprised. When he was told the officials suspected him of carrying explosives, he burst out laughing and opened his bag to reveal three bottles of honey. To reassure the officials that he wasn't lying, he drank about 10% from one bottle and also offered it to the officials..." said sources. Thoroughly confused after this, the security officials refused to let Hoon carry the honey along which apparently enraged him.
Officials pointed out that the inline system, while extremely sophisticated and in use across the world, required a highly trained staff to manage it. DIAL has outsourced the task to a private company.
29/08/08 Neha Lalchandani/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Aug 2008, Foreign Aug 2008, Safety Aug 2008