On December 22, 2001—just months after the 9/11 attacks—Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with homemade bombs hidden in his shoes.
During the flight, Reid tried to detonate his shoes, but he struggled to light the fuse. Crew members and passengers noticed and restrained him.
The plane diverted to Logan International Airport in Boston, and Massachusetts State Police officers took Reid into custody. Reid told FBI agents that he made the shoes himself.
This is the pair of shoes [Richard] Reid—also known as the “shoe bomber”—tried to detonate. FBI bomb techs determined that the shoes contained about 10 ounces of explosive material.
Interestingly, most airports in Europe do not routinely make people take their shoes off. The way the TSA sticks to that policy implies they should have planes dropping out of the sky on a weekly basis.
Swede here, I have only had to remove my shoes once when going through security, it was an airport in the UK, and I was randomly selected (I look like a Swede)
Have you tried not looking Swedish?
Don’t shame them for their debilitating meatball addiction.
* Sweating lingonberry sauce *
In uk airports I only take them off if they’re particularly metallic and I think they’ll trigger the metal detector