Flying with your cat? TSA warns “do not send your pet through the X-ray unit”

Flying with your cat? TSA warns “do not send your pet through the X-ray unit”

The Transportation Stability Administration is issuing a renewed set of warnings to pet entrepreneurs who are flying with their animal companions: “Halt sending your animals by means of x-ray.” The reminder will come days just after an individual remaining their pet cat in a carrying circumstance at a protection checkpoint and officers did not know until it was now finding scanned. 

TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein tweeted about the traveling mishap on March 3, stating the incident occurred at Virginia’s Norfolk Intercontinental Airport. 

“Just when you assumed it was protected to carry your pet cat on a excursion,” Farbstein reported, alongside with an orange X-ray image of the feline crouched down in a bag. “…Attention pet house owners: Please do not send your pet by way of the X-ray unit. Cat-astrophic oversight!” 

X-ray machines use a form of radiation to develop illustrations or photos of the inside of objects, and when residing points go via these scans, they are exposed to that radiation, although the Facilities for Sickness Regulate and Avoidance suggests that X-rays “commonly use the minimum volume of radiation.” The overall body scanners that men and women stroll by means of at airports use millimeter-wave technology that utilizes “non-ionizing radiation in the type of reduced-degree radio waves to scan a person’s system,” according to the CDC.

Farbstein explained that the animal is Okay. 

“The traveler and cat experienced to go by screening the appropriate way as soon as the TSA officers saw the X-ray picture,” Farbstein explained, incorporating that the suitable system for receiving the animal as a result of protection is getting it out of the bag. 

This isn’t the very first time another person still left their cat inside of baggage at the airport. In November, an orange cat was uncovered in someone’s checked baggage as it went via an X-ray device, one of a number of odd items detected in airport luggage scans past yr.

Just to make certain people today are knowledgeable of the suitable way to choose their pets by way of safety, officials introduced a online video showing just how to do it. 

“It’s a PSA from TSA to halt sending your pets by way of x-ray. You need to have to permit the cat out of the bag through safety screening,” the company stated. 

The accompanying movie demonstrates a pet proprietor taking their little dog out of its carrying case and going for walks with it by means of the human body scanner. And if pet entrepreneurs are “apprehensive you have an escape artist on your hands,” the agency stated there are other solutions out there. 

“Communicate with our officers about choice screening alternatives, which could involve private screening,” they reported.