Airport police in Tokyo briefly apprehended an American Airlines flight attendant after two magazines of live bullets were discovered in a carry-on bag.
The flight attendant, a US male in his 50s, was not charged and allowed to work his return flight back to the US at the weekend.
He was not carrying a gun.
Police at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport found 30 bullets during a security check as he was due to board his duty flight back to the U.S.
He was released as he posed no danger of destroying evidence, airport police official Masatoshi Ito said.
American Airlines said there are cooperating with Tokyo police but refused to disclose details of his flight out of the US.
That will likely trigger a probe of TSA screening at the relevant airport as to how the crewmember was able to get through undetected, especially as the US has now stepped up baggage checks of passengers flying in from overseas.
