Missile launcher confiscated from man's baggage at US airport

'Perhaps he should have picked up a keychain instead'

Airport security officials have seized a missile launcher “souvenir” from a man’s check-in luggage.

The launcher was confiscated at Baltimore/Washington International Airport in Maryland, US.

According to the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the passenger said he was bringing the missile launcher back from Kuwait as a souvenir.

Officers contacted airport police and detained the passenger, an active military personnel, for questioning.

The launcher was not a live device, said the TSA.

It was then handed over to state officials to be disposed of and the passenger was able to catch his flight.

“Perhaps he should have picked up a keychain instead,” the TSA quipped in a social media post.

It’s not the first time that passengers have tried to bring military weapons onboard public transport.

Last year, Eurostar had to issue a special warning to passengers ahead of Remembrance Day that they should not bring “bombs, shells or weapons” in their luggage.

The train operator, which runs cross-Channel services from London to France and Belgium, has had trouble in previous years from some passengers bringing back souvenirs from the First World War battlefields in Flanders.

Decommissioned or replica bombs, ammunition and shells are a popular memento sold in gift shops around the battlefields, but have in the past triggered security alerts at stations.