United Passenger Boards With Loaded Gun, Sits In First Class--Bodycam Shows Police Storm Plane And Yank Him Off

[mahatmakanejeeves]

United Passenger Boards With Loaded Gun, Sits In First Class—Bodycam Shows Police Storm Plane And Yank Him Off

by Gary Leff on May 15, 2025

Last month Besnik Ismajlaj, a 53-year-old man from St. Charles, Illinois, was arrested at Chicago O’Hare for carrying a loaded gun through a TSA checkpoint and boarding a United Airlines flight. Newly released body cam footage shows the TSA failure that let him board his flight armed.

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[ShazzieB]

1. Yikes!

TSA had found the firearm at the checkpoint – which is more than past DHS Inspector General reports would lead you to expect – but they were allowed to simply grab their bag and walk away. That was a major failure by the agency.

The article calls this a "major failure," but to be fair, he would have never have been caught if the TSA hadn't been scanning the luggage, and the story doesn’t say whether they tried to stop him from walking away. It may be that they're instructed to notify to notify LE when someone with a suspicious item in their bag just keeps going.

I'm also going to guess all planes in that part of the airport were notified not to take off until they located the guy. All in all, I'd say the system actually worked pretty well.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. He Got All The Way To The Plane

On the plane.
At O'Hare, from security to a gate is at least 10 minutes.
The plan was to let a gun with a gun wander around one of the world's busiest airport for 10 or 20 minutes with a gun? That strains credulity.
I think a system failure is more likely