Thaindian News

November 8, 2010 (Pen Men At Work): Baroness Neville-Jones, the security minister of Britain suffered an embarrassing moment at the airport when she was asked to remove liquids that she was carrying inside her hand luggage. In Britain airports, passengers are not allowed to carry with themselves more than 100 ml of liquid in their hand luggage, a practice that was introduced in the year 2006 as a preventive measure to stop the use of liquid bombs by terrorist organizations.

The incident took place at London’s Heathrow airport from where the security minister was scheduled to take a flight to Washington. A spokesman for Baroness Neville-Jones reported that the minister readily accepted the fact that she was at fault in carrying liquids over the permissible range and thus also complied with requests of emptying her bag at the security checking area.

Speaking at the House of Lords on Monday the 71 year old security minister stressed on the fact that airport security was a chief issue in the country and it was the duty of the airport staff to ensure security in the airport and the airplanes. Therefore, the country must also ensure the safety norms be abided by, said Baroness Neville-Jones.

It was two days after the security minister’s travel to Washington that an explosive was traced inside an ink cartridge at the East Midlands airport in England. Reports claim that the liquids inside Baroness Neville-Jones’ bag was kept without knowledge of the total amount.