Maine TSA finds a hatchet and a homemade gun in the passenger’s carry-on luggage

According to TSA, a passenger was caught trying to board a plane with a hatchet and a homemade gun in his carry-on luggage last week.

TSA officers at the Portland International Jetport in Portland, Maine, discovered the items on Tuesday. Portland police responded and confiscated the firearm, New England TSA spokesman Daniel Velez said.

Velez told MassLive that the passenger was a 50-year-old man traveling to Philadelphia. He was allowed to keep the hatchet but had to put it in his checked baggage.

Velez said this was the third firearm find this year at the Portland International Jetport in Portland.

The discovery comes just days before TSA announced that a record number of firearms had been found at airport security checkpoints nationwide this year.

As of Dec. 16, a TSA press release said the agency had blocked 6,301 firearms from going through security checkpoints this year — adding that more than 88% of them were loaded. That’s an increase from 5,972 firearms detected at security checkpoints last year.

The TSA is also increasing the maximum civil penalty for a firearms violation to $14,950, which will be determined on a case-by-case basis “based on the circumstances.”