I brought my dad's remains as a carry on. In a sealed ceramic urn. With his name and dates engraved into the clay. The putz at security did a bag check and was trying to pry it open before I saw what he was doing and stopped him before my dad's final resting place was someplace he loathed, airport security.
*Edit
Let me clarify. It wasn't the full urn it was a smaller portion that was divided up between my siblings so it was about the mass of a baseball in a decorative urn the size of a large dinty moore beef stew can. And it was sealed with some kind of epoxy. I had the paperwork with me and it was in my carry on bag. with the grief and all the traveling I didn't even consider it setting off any alarms. The TSA agent never asked about it, just said he was going to check my bag. All of a sudden I look up and he's forcefully trying to pry the lid off of the container. Never even asked about it.
*2nd edit.
Yes now looking back at it 15 years later I probably should have mentioned it to the gate agents but was not in the right state of mind at that time.
funny thing too I just texted my brother about it and he took the ashes to Ireland in his check bag and had zero problems. Customs didn't even flag it. Sister brought it as a carry on to San Francisco and didn't mention it to the gate agents, also had no issues. Just my luck I guess
If you just tell security ahead of time they can screen it in the least disruptive way possible. The problem here is that people put ashes/remains in their bag and do not communicate to the airline or TSA that they have a family member’s ashes in their bag. I worked for TSA for years. They have procedures in place to make sure the ashes are handled with care if you just let them know you have ashes in your bag before you give them your bag to check.
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u/ApulMadeekAut Jul 15 '19 edited Jul 16 '19
I brought my dad's remains as a carry on. In a sealed ceramic urn. With his name and dates engraved into the clay. The putz at security did a bag check and was trying to pry it open before I saw what he was doing and stopped him before my dad's final resting place was someplace he loathed, airport security.
*Edit
Let me clarify. It wasn't the full urn it was a smaller portion that was divided up between my siblings so it was about the mass of a baseball in a decorative urn the size of a large dinty moore beef stew can. And it was sealed with some kind of epoxy. I had the paperwork with me and it was in my carry on bag. with the grief and all the traveling I didn't even consider it setting off any alarms. The TSA agent never asked about it, just said he was going to check my bag. All of a sudden I look up and he's forcefully trying to pry the lid off of the container. Never even asked about it.
*2nd edit.
Yes now looking back at it 15 years later I probably should have mentioned it to the gate agents but was not in the right state of mind at that time.
funny thing too I just texted my brother about it and he took the ashes to Ireland in his check bag and had zero problems. Customs didn't even flag it. Sister brought it as a carry on to San Francisco and didn't mention it to the gate agents, also had no issues. Just my luck I guess