My 27 year old daughter was recently one of the random searches of suitcases due to security. This was luggage to be checked onto the plane - not carry on. She had a large can of hair spray in her checked luggage and they confiscated that. Any idea why that would happen? I thought that was ok to pack as long as it wasn't in the carry on.

I will be first to admit this is only a vague memory, so I may be wrong. Several years ago after plane blew up over Everglades because of oxygen cannisters I remember some prohibition being issued on aerosol containers of any type - I suspect no one payed attention to this but with increased security, now they catch people.

I'm not sure... but I think if you put a match to hair spray it ignites....and turns the can into a mini blow torch.

Can anyone confirm this?

Gail, you're right. It was a Valujet (pre-Airtran) plane. And Dick, you're right about being able to ignite hairspray (remember the old James Bond movie in which he dispatched a bad guy that way.) But I have heard of no prohibition against hairspray on airplanes. Has anyone heard of such? I can't believe that with all the passengers going hither and yon, no one has gotten tot ake their hairspray on a plane. [by the way, there is a difference in hairsprays. some are more enviromentallly friendly nowadays. Maybe, that kind is okay to take on planes.???!!!??]

It was oxygen canisters that were loosely loaded that caused the Value Jet crash. As far as the hairspray can there must have been something about it that was "fishy" to them. Call and see what the answer is.

I confess I don't know if there's a rule about aerosal sprays in luggage, but I'd guess your daughter was the victim of an over-zealous security guard.

Fact is, any alcohol-based product is a fire hazard, but only if the fire starts with another source. Hair-spray cans don't independently ignite (whereas the cannisters of the type on the ValueJet flight DO ignite independently).

I believe she could have argued that if they were taking her hair spray, they should have gone through everyone's luggage and confiscated all hair sprays. Obviously, that's not worth the hassle, but it does answer your question.

Spray cans have been forbidden in both checked and carry-on luggage for many years, though the prohibition tended to get ignored. Perhaps Sue's daughter's hair spray was confiscated becuase it was "large."

FYI, Kirk, the environmentally-unfriendly aerosol propellants have been banned since the late 1970s.

http://cas.faa.gov/these.html

Jim, I know that certain propellants were banned in the '70s, yet I still see large cans of hairspray in stores. Are they flammable, or not? Frankly, I've never tried to light one.

And what about cans of shave cream - there must be a propellant in them as well? Is it the propellant that's flammable, or the alcohol, as "chemist" stated? I honestly don't know. I do know that there are hair sprays with no alcohol. Would those be okay to take on the plane?

Has anyone called an airline to see about this?

http://www.airsafe.com/danger.htm

The propellant category that was banned (in most places, for most uses) was halogenated hydrocarbons. Nowadays, propellants frequently are just CO2 or nitrous oxide -- it's the pressure, not the propellant per se, that propels the other contents, including hairspray, which in turn might or might not involve flammables like alcohol. There's such a varity of propellants and flammable/nonflammable ingredients used, I can understand why they don't want security personnel to be responsible for differentiating, and just ban them all.

Cool.
And who said you never learn anything on Fodors?
Great info, Jim.

Us Jim's (including Bond) have to stick together.

All aerosol containers are prohibited from air cargo unless you obtain a license for transport. That's right - you can't even ship it by air through USPS, Fedex, UPS, etc. Some obviously get away with it though.

This is from the FAA's Web site on banned substances in checked luggage:

"Pressure containers:
Spray cans, butane fuel, scuba tanks, propane tanks, CO2 cartridges, self-inflating rafts"

Guess I'm going to have to leave my raft home.

(BTW, before anyone gets in a lather about cutting and pasting copyrighted material: Taxpayer-supported info isn't copyrighted.)