Exploding bag attracts attention of airport security

Their first clue there was something dangerous in the bag: it exploded.

Perhaps I'm overreacting to this. It was just a little explosion, and no one was seriously hurt. But something is fundamentally wrong with the system when a bag containing explosive materials has to actually explode in front of workers as it's being loaded on a plane in order to be detected by airport security:

A man has been arrested after FBI and TSA officials said his luggage contained volatile gun parts, which caused his bag to explode Tuesday just before it was about to be loaded on a plane.

The unidentified 37-year-old man had 500 to 700 bullet primers in his luggage. Primers are considered the "spark plugs" of a bullet and ignites the gun powder, projecting it toward the intended target.

Officials originally said the exploding bag was caused by a hairspray aerosol can.

The situation turned out to be much more serious and could have been even more dangerous if the bag containing the combustible elements would have exploded while the plane was in the air.

The Miami-Dade bomb squad was called to the airport around 11:30 a.m. after a baggage handler said he was taking luggage to an American Airlines plane that had just arrived from Boston and a bag exploded, sending pieces of metal flying.

The FBI confirmed the passenger and the exploding checked bag got on the flight in Boston and the luggage was being transferred to another flight headed for Jamaica.

The 148 original passengers from Flight 2585 had already departed the plane before the incident.

Officials believe when the baggage handler sat the bag down on the ground, it caused one of the bullet primers to rupture and explode, which ignited a chain reaction among the other tiny pieces of metal.

The worker was not seriously injured, but the words "explosion" and "airplane" can't be used in the same sentence without the terror alert going up a few notches. Officials took one of the baggage handler's shoes, which had a piece of metal lodged in it, and called in the bomb dogs.

After clearing the tarmac, investigators determined there was no bomb on board, but instead one of the passengers would have to answer for the hazardous cargo.

Seems to me he's not the only one who has some questions to answer. How about airport security? Passengers are put through invasive pat-downs and screenings (which have never once caught a would-be terrorist) while explosives are blithely loaded onto a plane. What, pray tell, is the point of the big show of security for passengers and carry-ons when a person can check a bag containing literal explosives?

The less trusting among us might look at this dysfunctional security system, in which alert, courageous fellow passengers and the ineptitude of bombers have proven to be our best defense, and in which Big Brother's overt measures are as ineffectual as they are intrusive and humiliating, and conclude that something is going on here that has little to do with keeping planes and passengers intact and more to do with the our minders showing us who's boss. Case in point here.

Or maybe it's just another government grow-beast. Our bureaucracies are like one left in the glass of water too long. What you end up with is a very unwholesome object, grossly bloated, distorted, and slimy. But in the case of a government bureaucracy, the noxious beast can't be dropped in the garbage. It takes on a life of its own, the main purpose of which is to keep expanding, at our expense.

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