The day after a Huntington man was cited for having a loaded handgun in his carry-on baggage while attempting to board a flight at Charleston's Yeager Airport, a Charleston man was briefly detained and had his weapon confiscated after it was detected in his carry-on bag at Huntington's Tri-State Airport, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
On Thursday, a TSA officer operating a security checkpoint X-ray machine at Tri-State Airport detected a .40-caliber handgun inside a carry-on bag owned by a Charleston man.
Tri-State Airport Interim Police Chief Richard Madison said the Charleston man missed his scheduled flight, but was released in time to board a later flight.
Madison said the weapon was not loaded, and that since an investigation into the matter was incomplete, he would not identify the passenger.
On Wednesday, Thomas Marcum, 31, of Huntington, was cited by Yeager Airport Police after a loaded .45-caliber handgun loaded with six bullets was detected in his military-style backpack by a TSA officer operating an X-ray machine at a passenger security checkpoint.
Both Marcum and the unidentified Charleston man told TSA officers that they had forgotten the handguns were in their carry-on bags.
Marcum's citation carries a maximum fine of $100 and up to 30 days in jail. His handgun was seized. Airport operations were not affected by either incident, according to the TSA.
This week's firearms citations and seizures brought the number of TSA security checkpoint handgun detections thus far this year to six at Yeager Airport and two at Tri-State, according to TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. During 2015, only two such handgun incidents took place at the Charleston airport.
Tri-State's other incident this year took place in March, when a Kentucky man was cited for having a loaded .380-caliber handgun with one round in the firing chamber in his possession as he attempted to clear the TSA security gate.
At Yeager Airport, four citations for having handguns in carry-on bags at the security gate were recorded in April alone, following a single citation in January. In all cases, the firearms detected by TSA officers were loaded. In nearly all cases, those cited told authorities they were not aware of, or had forgotten, that their handguns were in their carry-on bags.
While firearms are not allowed to be transported in carry-on bags, they can be carried in checked bags if they are not loaded, properly packed and declared to the airline, according to the TSA.
In addition to possible fines and jail terms from state and local authorities, passengers who bring firearms to airport TSA checkpoints are also subject to possible civil penalties from the TSA of up to $11,000.
Farbstein said the number of firearms detections and seizures at airport security gates across the country is slightly up from last year, after posting a 20 percent gain in 2015 from the previous year.
Of the 2,653 firearms discovered in carry-on bags by the TSA last year, nearly 83 percent were loaded.
From July 22 to 28 of this year, TSA screeners discovered 74 firearms at airports across the nation, setting a one-week record for attempted passenger aircraft boardings by people with handguns. Of those weapons, 65 were loaded and 29 had rounds chambered.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at
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