NEW YORK (AP) — Don’t accuse the TSA of sleeping on the job. When an alert officer at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport noticed tufts of orange fur sticking out of a slightly opened suitcase, he stopped.
When the bag went through the X-ray unit on Nov. 16, the Transportation Security Administration agent got a surprise: Inside were four legs and a tail belonging to a feline stowaway.
“On the bright side, the cat is out of the bag,” a TSA spokesperson tweeted.
via the Associated Press
The passenger was sent back to the ticket office after the cat was found, spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said in an email.
“The traveler said the cat belonged to someone else in the house, which means he didn’t know the cat was in the suitcase,” Farbstein said.
“We call it a good CATtch!” she said.
The clandestine cat, identified by the New York Post as “Smells,” has been returned to its owner.
The cat’s owner told the Post that Smells must have crawled into a visiting friend’s suitcase. She didn’t know her tabby was missing until airport officials caught up with her.
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