X

TSA asks passengers not to carry battle-axes on planes

Hey all you wannabe Vikings, your weapons, even replicas, need to be packed in checked luggage.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
See full bio
Gael Cooper

Are you asking about the battle axe or your foot? Feet are good, but the axe is a replica and needs to be packed in a checked bag. .... This is a screenshot of a tweet sent to the AskTSA account on Twitter. Have you ever wondered whether or not you can pack a certain item? Fret no more! Now you can simply snap a picture and tweet it to AskTSA or send it via Facebook Messenger and our team will get back to you promptly with an answer. .... If you're a regular follower of this account, I'm sure you can think of many situations where it would have behooved somebody to send us a picture first. And that's not all. Contact us about any TSA related issue or question you might have. We can even help you if you don’t see TSA Pre✓® on your boarding pass. .... We look forward to answering your questions, 8am-10pm ET weekdays; 9am-7pm weekends/holidays. #AskTSA #TSATravelTips

A post shared by TSA (@tsa) on

Certain things might seem self-evident to most of us. You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. And you don't take a battle-ax, no matter what it's made of, into the passenger cabin of a commercial airplane.

More TSA stories

The Transportation Security Administration's sassy Instagram account has been quiet for a few days, but was back in fighting form on Friday, sharing the above photo of a replica battle-ax an unidentified passenger wanted to carry on a flight. 

Simmer down, ye wannabe Viking warriors. The TSA shot down any hopes of slicing open a Diet Sprite from the flight attendant's cart, noting that even though the weapon was a prop and made of soft material, it needed to be packed in checked luggage. The post also joked about the photographer's foot, because that is toe-tally funny.

Followers of the account has some sharp replies.

"'It's sort of like a nerf,' will be my new excuse for everything," wrote rooaary.

And a user going by the name infinity_dong_ (!) had a "Game of Thrones"-related response, writing, "Just in case there are White Walkers on the plane."