For years, travelers have been forced to awkwardly remove their shoes in the airport security line, a policy that dates back to a failed, decades-old terrorism plot.
The rule just changed with a big announcement from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who ended the Transportation Security Administration’s shoe removal policy on July 8. The changes, she said, will go into effect immediately in airports across the country.
The shoe removal rule was first implemented in 2006, but its origin dates back to a 2001 “shoe bomber” plot aboard an American Airlines flight.
What happened in the ‘shoe bomber’ plot?
On Dec. 22, 2001, just four months after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, a man named Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63, from Paris to Miami, with 10 ounces of explosives in his shoe.
Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft laid out the harrowing tale of events during a 2002 press conference announcing indictments against Reid.
As the flight soared thousands of feet above the Atlantic Ocean, Ashcroft said a flight attendant confronted Reid when she saw him adjusting a wire protruding from his shoe. Reid attacked her and other passengers leapt into action.
One man restrained Reid’s arm, while another took hold of his legs. Other passengers took off Reid’s shoe and tied him to the chair using belts they collected from around the cabin. Then, a doctor onboard sedated Reid.
The plane made an emergency landing at Boston’s Logan International Airport, where Massachusetts State Police arrested Reid.
Upon inspection, FBI agents discovered the shoe contained enough explosives to have blown a hole in the plane’s fuselage. If the shoe had detonated, the FBI said the plane would have crashed.
Who was Richard Reid and what happened to him?
Law enforcement officers later discovered Reid had received training in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda, the organization headed by Osama bin Laden that also planned the Sept. 11 attacks.
Reid pled guilty in Oct. 2002 to eight criminal counts related to terrorism. During the court hearing, he admitted his allegiance to bin Laden and said he was “at war” with the United States over its treatment of Muslims.
“Your government has sponsored the rape and torture of Muslims in the prisons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and Jordan with their money and with their weapons. I don’t know, see what I done as being equal to rape and to torture, or to the deaths of the two million children in Iraq,” Reid said at the time.
“So, for this reason, I think I ought not apologize for my actions. I am at war with your country.”
Reid was sentenced in 2003 to life in prison and a $2 million fine.
The Department of Justice later found that Reid acted with others in his plot. They charged Saajid Mohammed Badat with plotting to blow up an aircraft. Badat later became an informant against other terrorists, the BBC reported.
Why TSA started making people remove their shoes
TSA implemented the no shoe rule in 2006. It required all passengers between the ages of 12 and 75 to remove their footwear and put it on the scanner, along with carry on bags and other miscellaneous items.
As time went on, fewer people became subject to the rule. The TSA Precheck Trusted Traveler program, which began in 2013, allowed users to keep their shoes on at checkpoints, among other perks. As of August 2024, the program enrolled 20 million people, according to the agency.
“Everything the TSA does and requires of travelers has always been necessary, but they have advanced over the years,” Noem said on July 8. “We have made advancements in how we screen individuals.”
Contributing: Zach Wichter, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: TSA shoe removal rule traces back to 2001 ‘shoe bomber’ plot
