A TSA Airport staff discovered a cat trapped inside a suitcase after a check on a traveller for a journey from New York JFK to Orlando, Florida, on November 16, CNN reports.
According to the report, the discovery was made by the TSA airport staff when the suitcase was rolled through the X-ray machine, TSA officials could see what appeared to be bottles, wine glasses, a pair of flip-flops and a life-size outline of a cat.
It turned out that the outline was life-size because the cat was a real cat: ginger, alive and, apparently, unharmed by its past few hours of being stuffed into a suitcase and flung around on its way onto the plane. A plane where, of course, it could easily have died in the hold during the flight.
According to CNN, the TSA airport staff who saw the image, and then opened the case to find the cat, were “shocked,” TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein reportedly said.
Despite them dealing daily with everything from unauthorized firearms to illicit cranberry sauce, “It’s rare to discover a live animal in a checked bag,” she said. Luckily, the cat didn’t try to run away when they opened the case.
The passenger, who was travelling on Delta Air Lines, was paged to come and explain his luggage, and told TSA that “it was not his cat — it belonged to someone else in the household,” said Farbstein. They suggested the cat — which was on top of the luggage, and even had its fur sticking out of the case between the zippers — had got into the case unseen.
TSA did not involve animal welfare, said Farbstein.