UK airport tells traveller toy soldier’s three-inch rifle is safety threat on plane

LONDON - Airport officials in UK banned a Canadian tourist and his wife from carrying a toy soldier onto a plane because the three-inch rifle that came with it posed a safety threat.

Ken Lloyd, who had bought the toy, which holds a replica SA80 rifle, during a visit to the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Camp in Dorset, was stunned when he was told the nine-inch model soldier was a threat because it carried a “firearm”.

But when he tried to take the 135 pounds keepsake through Gatwick Airport in his hand luggage it triggered a security alert at the scanners.

Officials declared the moulded gun could not go on the plane and Lloyd had to snap off the model weapon and then post it back to his home in Ontario.

“As the figurine’s SA80 rifle was pulled from the box, the security search officer contacted her supervisor. The moulded SA80 could not pass,” the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

“My wife asked for a ‘reality check’, explaining how this offending piece of sculptured moulding is a 9 inch painted model with a moulded and painted rifle that is part of the figure.

“The supervisor was confident within the surety of the regulations and said a ‘firearm’ is a firearm and cannot pass,” he stated.

Adam Forty, curator at the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Camp, Dorset, said the military museum takes security very seriously, especially around military installations and airports.

“But this does seem more than a little excessive. It is probably just as well we didn’t sell Mrs Lloyd a toy tank,” Forty stated. (ANI)