Leatherman Skeletool

I had Leatherman Sketelool from March this year. I remember clearly when I used it to reshape the heel part of my friend's shoes which he said was hurting him quite so much in its first actual use.

And today I lost it.

I managed to smuggle it last week from Hiroshima Airport (Mihara, Japan) to Hazrat Shahjalal Airport (ZIA, Dhaka, Bangladesh) with no hitch as I put it on checked-in luggage. I've did this in several occasions with my more trusty Surge,

Last night, I tried something different from Dhaka to Bangkok (transit before coming back to Japan). Rather than stashing it on my checked-in luggage, I kept it on my carry-on baggage as my baggage doesn't even exceed 5 kg.

Things happened.

In Hazrat Shahjalal Airport, you will need a specific sticker for your checked-in luggage; as I already checked through the ticket counter by the time I knew this; I was too lazy to get it and just proceeded to take it as carry-on baggage.

Still I managed to get it through in Hazrat Shahjalal Airport and board Bangkok Airways.

I landed on Suvarnabhumi (BKK, Bangkok, Thailand) and they did extensive check on my baggage looking form something knife-like. I tried to buy some time but they eventually found the tool (I was claiming it as pliers though) and confiscated it. They must have had some feeling of achievement to be able to fish a solid metal :D

I (more likely) wouldn't lose the tool if I just put it on checked-in baggage. But from this I learned several things:

• some airport care less, some care more: Suvarnabhumi require you to strip even your belt, shoes, and watch, that is not the case with Hazrat Shahjalal,
• those guards are dedicated to their job even at 1 AM; they are willing to fish through your smelly and dirty clothes,
• they were looking for solid metal thing, by solid I meant SOLID; it will appear as dark blue or black in the scanner,
• they used divide-and-conquer approach to find specific item from a suspicious baggage,
• they know how things look like--they weren't not really interested in my multimeter and umbrella and kept focusing in finding the tool.

I could go to arrival lobby rather than transit lobby to complicate things a bit, but they can always check even if I put the tool in my checked-in luggage if they have enough spare time, dedication, curiosity, and motivation.

Kudos to airport safety crews who worked hard to make every flight safe.


you've served me faithfully smally. but another skeletool is no-no for me atm.

Also, I never really love you anyway, Skeletool (the pliers suck and multitools are overpriced in Japan). But anyway, quite a (an expensive) lesson I've learned today.