How One Sex Toy Fucked an Entire Airport
With all the scary shit that can happen when you’re flying—engines exploding, overhead bins bursting into flames, brawls erupting in a terminal—TSA really can’t be too careful when it comes to making sure we stay safe aboard those flying metal tubes. But on Tuesday, airport security in Berlin was maybe a little too cautious in somehow mistaking a harmless sex toy for a potential explosive.
According to RT, agents at Berlin’s Schönefeld Airport detected a suspicious item that set off a red flag during an X-ray scan, and wound up shutting down a whole terminal, forcing travelers to evacuate and grounding a handful of flights. After the cops tracked down the passenger who owned the would-be bomb, they swarmed him with automatic weapons, and demanded to know what was in his bag. Apparently a little embarrassed that a bunch of guys with guns had potentially found his sex toy, the man said he’d put some “technical stuff” in there, CNN reports. Then, he sat back and watched while someone from the bomb squad cautiously approached his luggage.
“After 60 tense minutes, [the member of the bomb squad] returned laughing,” the passenger told RT. “The hand grenade was in fact a vibrator from Ann Summers that my girlfriend and I had purchased two weeks previous.”
You have to wonder exactly how high-tech the dude’s sex toy had to be to trigger an all-out security crisis. Was this just your standard vibrator, or something more intense—a foot-long Magic Wand, perhaps, or maybe this weird leaf blower-looking thing? Then again, maybe it doesn’t take all that much for a sex toy to be considered a “suspicious item”—they’ve already caused bomb scares in Thailand, Sudan, Australia, and beyond.
Aside from suffering through the embarrassment of having a bunch of cops laugh at his dildo, the passenger wound up missing his flight, so, you know, great job airport security. If you’re allowed to put camping stoves, giant lobsters, axes, guns, and rainbow flame crystals in your checked luggage without a problem, you should damn well be able to pack a vibrator without being labeled a suspected terrorist.
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This article originally appeared on VICE US.