Drugs found after flight attendant flees LAX

Drugs found after flight attendant flees LAX

US authorities are searching for a flight attendant they say ran from a security screening at Los Angeles International Airport, leaving behind about more than 30kg of cocaine stashed in her luggage.

Transportation Security Administration officers stopped the woman at random on Friday, and she remained at large on Monday.

The flight attendant was sent to a secondary screening area, but she quickly dropped her bag, ditched a pair of Gucci heels and fled barefoot down an upward-moving escalator, said Marshall McClain, the president of the union representing LAX airport police officers.

He said the case showed why all flight attendants and other airport employees needed to be screened.

“With her bringing this amount of narcotics in the airport, chances are this wasn’t her first time through,” McClain said.

Security threats from “insiders”, including airline and airport employees and workers hired by contractors, have been a focus of the TSA, particularly after the December 2014 arrest of several Delta Air Lines baggage handlers.

Prosecutors allege they smuggled guns, including an AK-47, from Atlanta to New York.

The TSA has said full screening of all employees would cost too much. Instead, the agency has urged airports to increase random screenings of workers and to keep background checks up to date.

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