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A group of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers and an X-ray machine saved the day at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport by detecting a cat that someone unknowingly packed into a checked bag.
The furry find occurred on Nov. 16, according to the TSA, and involved a piece of luggage heading from New York to Florida on a Delta flight. Officers searched the bag containing the feline after the suitcase set off an alarm at a JFK checked baggage screening point, The Washington Post reported.
TSA agents examined the X-ray to see what set off the alarm and found the unmistakable outline of an animal inside the piece of luggage. They opened the bag and found a live orange cat tucked inside.
The TSA confirmed its “hiss-toric find” on social media Tuesday, sharing several photos from the incident on Twitter. The pictures show an x-ray of the luggage containing the cat — where the pet’s outline is easy to spot — and a shot of orange fur peeking out of the suitcase’s zipper.
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“We’re letting the cat out of the bag on a hiss-toric find. This CATch had our baggage screening officers @JFKairport saying, ‘Come on meow!'” the TSA tweeted with the photos.
TSA agents contacted the cat-infested bag’s owner and discovered the feline did not belong to them. The cat is a roommate’s pet that somehow snuck into the luggage.
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“Traveler said the cat belonged to someone else in his household,” TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein posted on Twitter Tuesday.
It “was implied” that the furball saw the open suitcase and jumped in without the traveler seeing it, Farbstein added to NBC News.
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According to the outlet, the TSA agents saved the cat from heading into the plane’s cargo hold. The bag’s owner missed their flight to Florida helping the cat safely return home from the airport and flew out the following day to start their trip feline-free.
