TSA officers screening carry-on luggage at Dallas Love Field Airport (DAL) discovered a pocketknife hidden inside a tube of toothpaste, according to an account published on the agency’s website.
TSA Officer Jazmine Kramer spotted what looked like a metal object near the toiletries while running the bag through an X-ray machine and flagged it for a hands-on search.
“Usually when people have prohibited items in their bags, it’s by accident,” Kramer said. “It’s not normally because they intentionally put something there thinking it will make it through.”
Security training instructor Wade Brown, Jr. first searched the toiletry bag but could not locate the object. He sent the bag through the X-ray machine a second time to narrow down where it was, then picked up the toothpaste tube itself. Brown said it didn’t feel right and noticed tape near one end. A closer look revealed the pocketknife concealed inside.
The married couple who owned the bag told officers their son had suggested hiding the knife inside the toothpaste tube in hopes of getting it past airport security.
“I was super surprised when they both said that,” Brown said. “This was the first time at DAL I had ever seen someone intentionally hide an item inside something else in an attempt to get it through security.”
The couple voluntarily surrendered the knife and were permitted to continue on to their flight, TSA said.
Brown said the episode underscored the value of officers communicating with each other when an X-ray flags something that isn’t immediately found during a physical search.
“If one officer sees something and another officer cannot locate it during the search, work together and communicate until you find it,” he said.
TSA Dallas Love Field Federal Security Director Amy Williams said the find is a reminder that screeners must be ready for the unexpected.
“A knife concealed inside a toothpaste tube is not something travelers typically encounter, but it is exactly the type of threat our officers are trained to identify and resolve,” Williams said.
The discovery follows a similar incident at Tampa International Airport, where TSA officers found a 4-inch, double-edged knife hidden inside a baseball bat-shaped flashlight tucked beneath the lining of a passenger’s carry-on bag. That passenger initially denied knowing the item was in his luggage before saying he’d placed it there to save space. He was arrested and barred from traveling.
