Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers discovered an 84 mm caliber anti-tank weapon in a passenger’s checked bag at San Antonio International Airport (SAT), Texas. The weapon was undeclared.
A photo of the find, alongside a reminder that travelers need to declare weapons when traveling, was published to TSA South West’s Twitter account.
According to NBC, the weapon was discovered on January 16, 2023, prompting involvement from the San Antonio Police Department.
The object in question appears to be a Carl Gustaf M4 recoilless rifle, also known as a Multi-Role Anti-Armor Anti-Personnel Weapon System (MAAWS) in the US. It is a man-portable launcher designed to fire a range of rocket-propelled rounds and was adopted in the US in the late 1980s.
The weapon was designed by Sweden’s Saab and was exported to more than three dozen countries, including Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Australia, India and Ukraine.
The information provided by TSA did not explicitly specify if the find is an actual weapon or a replica, as well as if it was loaded with a projectile when found.
However, in a response to an inquiry from NBC, the TSA stated that checked luggage can include weapons “as long as they’re not explosives, explosive replicas or certain incendiary devices” inferring that the found object indeed met the definition of a weapon, yet did not contain any explosive elements, such as ammunition.
