At the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina, an uncomfortable TSA pat-down of a 10-year-old girl has angered her father, Kevin Payne. A female TSA agent patted down Vendela Payne after the girl's bag got a wrong reading for explosives at the airport.
The erroneous reading for explosives happened because of a juice drink that the girl accidentally left in her bag. According to TSA protocol, there is a limit on the amount of liquid that passengers can carry with them on the plane. The violation of this regulation prompted TSA to perform a pat-down on the girl.
The father was able to capture the thorough 2-minute TSA screening with his cell phone video camera. "She just had a completely blank stare on her face," he told NBC News. "I could tell it was very uncomfortable for her."
The upset girl talked to NBC about her recent traumatic experience at the airport, ""What was going through my mind is, 'This is annoying, I don't like this, I want to run out of the door.'"
The TSA also released a statement to NBC news about the airport incident, "TSA screening procedures allow for the pat-down of a child under certain circumstances. The process by which the child was patted down followed approved procedures." The Transportation Security Administration or TSA is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agency responsible for the security of public travel in the country.
This uncomfortable TSA pat-down of a 10-year-old girl is not the first controversy faced by TSA. Many travellers have already complained of excessive patting down from different TSA agents in the past like what happened to Canadian Ashley Jessica who was able to upload the video of her pat-down on YouTube. You can also watch Payne's video of her daughter's pat-down in the hands of a TSA agent below and post your thoughts on the comments section.
