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.

https://www.fbi.gov/history/artifacts/richard-reids-shoes

  • @stoly
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    1110 months ago

    This depends on state. In Miami, they literally SCREAMED at me when I bent down to take my shoes off, and in Seattle, they were completely and utterly (like personally) offended that I didn’t automatically take them off.

    • @[email protected]
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      310 months ago

      I almost always have to take off my shoes, even when others do not. I’m not sure, but I think if your feet are bigger than the yellow footprint marks they have you stand on, it increases the likelihood of them searching your shoes.

      Just last year in Seoul I had a security guy chase me down like 5min after getting through security. He had me take off my shoes and then he just wacked them on the ground a bunch like he was playing drums. I gotta admire the commitment though, don’t think I’d be investigating via ground slam If I thought a shoe contained explosives.

      • @stoly
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        10 months ago

        That was racism you experienced there. Also was seemingly an idiot.

        • @[email protected]
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          310 months ago

          That was racism you experienced there.

          I don’t think so, I was in Korea and I’m of Korean descent… I’m not fully Korean, so it’s possible. But I generally just look like a larger than average Korean person.

          Also was seemingly an idiot.

          Idiot or just an idiotic dedication to their job, in Korea the two can be hard to delineate a lot of the time.