Karachi airport screeners stop man wearing therapeutic vibro-shoes
Pakistani airport security screeners stop a man wearing therapeutic vibro-shoes; X-ray operators were alarmed to note batteries and circuitry built into the soles of his shoes, but the gadgetry is meant to deliver soothing foot massage, not to explode a bomb
Pakistani security operatives have detained a man at Karachi airport for attempting to board a plane with a pair of electrical vibro-massage shoes. Reports indicate that the passenger, Faiz Mohammad, 30, was about to board a Thai Airways flight to Oman when he was seized following a check of his effects. X-ray operators had been alarmed to note batteries and circuitry built into the soles of his shoes.
It appears that the gadgetry was not the firing circuit of a shoe bomb but a massage device: the shoes were reportedly the rechargeable Good Vibrations model, intended to deliver soothing foot massage to the wearer as he or she walks about.
“We have seen such shoes for the first time [today]” police investigator Niaz Khoso told Reuters. “To be honest, we did not know that such shoes are available … We have not released him yet but if he is found innocent, we will let him go for sure.”
There is no rule against carrying batteries and circuitry onto aeroplanes, and most passengers do so routinely in the form of cameras, phones, laptops, etc. The idea of airport security X-rays is to detect explosives and, more feasibly, detonators. There is no suggestion that Mohammad was carrying any such materials.
According to the AP, another police official justified Mohammad’s detention by saying that “similar materials can be used in the construction of bombs,” but as Lewis Page notes, that this is true of all electronics. A security operative who would stop you for having vibro shoes should, logically, stop anyone carrying anything containing a battery.
