A boa constrictor was caught in a passenger's carry-on luggage in Tampa last month.
gettyA Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer discovered a 4-foot boa constrictor in a passenger’s carry-on bag at Tampa International Airport last month, the agency noted Friday on social media.
Though the passenger claimed it was only Bartholomew, her “support snake,” the agency did not allow the reptile past the checkpoint.
The encounter with Bartholomew prompted a reference to a 2006 film starring Samuel L. Jackson. “Snake on a plane?” tweeted TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein. “There was definitely a 4-foot boa constrictor in this carry-on bag that was detected by TSA in [Tampa] last month. But it did not slither its way onto the flight.”
The agency’s Instagram account offered a pun-filled take: “Our officers at Tampa International Airport didn’t find this hyssssssterical! Coiled up in a passenger’s carry-on was a 4’ boa constrictor! We really have no adder-ation for discovering any pet going through an x-ray machine.”
This was not the first time the agency has had to contend with a snake at a security checkpoint.
In August 2019, TSA officials at Newark International Airport spotted a 15-inch ring-necked snake, a harmless thin black snake with a bright yellow band around the back of its neck, on the floor of a screening checkpoint. The animal apparently had been abandoned by a passenger in line. An officer placed a checkpoint bin over the snake to contain it, and the lane was closed temporarily before Port Authority Police took it away.
Over the past several months, TSA has discovered two pets during the X-ray screening process. A cat had been placed in checked luggage at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The second incident involved a dog found in a carry-on bag that was screened at the security checkpoint at Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wisconsin. In both cases, the pets were unharmed, but pets should never be screened through an X-ray unit, says the TSA.
Pet travel restrictions vary by airline, so passengers should check before attempting to travel with an animal. Many airlines allow small pets — typically dogs, cats and rabbits — to travel in the aircraft cabin as long as they are in a pet carrier.
In those cases, the pet needs to have its own ticket and be presented at the TSA security checkpoint in a hand-held travel carrier and removed just prior to the screening process. If possible, the owner should either carry the pet or walk it through the screening process on a leash. After screening, owners should return the pet to its travel carrier.
Prior to 2021, emotional support animals flew for free, by law, as long as their owners had a doctor’s note saying they needed the animal for comfort. But that policy was reversed after airlines showed that passengers were abusing the rule by bringing everything from turtles and pigs to even, in 2018, a peacock. (United Airlines turned away the peacock.)
Service animals, defined as a dog trained to help a person with a disability, are still allowed on planes.
