For the third time in a week, a passenger has been arrested for trying to carry a loaded firearm onto an airplane at Salt Lake City International Airport -- this time hidden next to his artificial leg.
Lorie Dankers, a spokeswoman with the Transportation Security Administration, said the latest incident came Thursday night when TSA screeners discovered a man with a loaded .22-caliber pistol strapped to his prosthetic leg inside a boot.
The firearm was spotted as the man, en route to Charlotte, N.C., walked through a whole body scanning station. A follow-up search yielded the firearm, with a fully-loaded, seven-round clip and another round in the chamber.
Salt Lake City Airport Police officers arrested the man on suspicion of violating state law by carrying a concealed weapon into a secure area.
TSA confirmed that this is the 19th time a firearm has been discovered at a security checkpoint at the Utah airport this year, just one shy of the 20 firearms seized in all of 2012.
Dankers stressed that passengers wishing to travel with a firearm must transport them in checked baggage.
Also, the weapon must be declared to the airline during the ticket counter check-in process and must be unloaded and stored in a locked, hard-sided container.
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Passenger arrested after gun is found on his artificial leg
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