1st gun of 2021 caught at Pittsburgh International Airport checkpoint

Another year, another traveler forgetting to remove a gun from a carry-on bag at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Transportation Security Administration officers at the airport stopped a Beaver County woman Thursday morning with a small, foldout .22-caliber handgun in her bag, according to Allegheny County Police and TSA officials.

Security officials in Pittsburgh last year caught 21 travelers with firearms in their carry-on bags, an expected dip in numbers that had been slowly ticking upward in the years prior.

The woman, who was not charged criminally, had a concealed carry permit and had “inadvertently left the firearm in her bag,” county police wrote in a statement.

Police confiscated the gun, and the woman was permitted to fly.

TSA officers spotted the gun as the woman’s bag went through the X-ray machine at the airport’s checkpoint, spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said.

While she does not face criminal charges, the woman faces federal civil penalties, which can top $4,000 for a first offense, Farbstein said.

It is the first firearm caught at Pittsburgh International’s checkpoint this year. Nationwide, TSA officers caught their first gun of the year on the first day of the year. A Georgia man traveling through Washington, D.C., on New Year’s Day was caught by TSA officers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The man, according to the TSA, had a 9mm handgun and magazine in his carry-on bag. He was cited for a weapons violation.

In Pittsburgh, the number of guns stopped at airport checkpoints had been trending slightly upward for years: 32 in 2017, 34 in 2018 and 35 in 2019.