To think my mum overstepped the mark - sister minding stranger’s bag at airport

[Airportdrama]

Me (26), my sister (25) and our mum have been abroad for a few days. We are flying home tonight and are currently at the airport (pre-security). We’re too early to drop our suitcase off so my mum and I went to look for food while my sister looked after our bags.
When we came back with sandwiches and suggested we go upstairs to a table to eat them, my sister said she would join us shortly as a stranger had asked her to mind her bag while she went for a smoke.
My mum immediately told my sister off and said she shouldn’t have agreed to that and to leave the bag. My sister refused until the bag owner came back. My mum and I headed off to find a table but on the way my mum told me she was going back to wait with my sister to tell the stranger that she shouldn’t be asking people to mind her bags. I said “mum, don’t, she [my sister]’s an adult” but my mum stormed off angrily. By the time she got back to my sister, the lady had just returned and was moving away with her bag. My mum apparently gave her a “look” instead of speaking to her.
My sister has since told our mum that she’s an adult, can make her own decisions and asked our mum not to stand up to strangers on her behalf. Our mum said “yes but as an adult I thought you would be sensible and not agree to look after someone’s bag. I’m an adult too so I can decide to speak to them if I want”.
AIBU to think our mum should back off? Yes not a good idea to agree to mind a stranger’s bag but my sister is entitled to make her own mistakes. Our mum has historically not respected our boundaries.

I’m team mum too. Sometimes dumb people need a good telling off and their mother is the best person to do it.

Thank God for shouty mums - the world’s unsung heroes. 🙏🏻

Which is why mumsnet can be quite a ferocious place at times 😉

Now wondering if the thread may be a reverse 🤔

have only read OP.
your sister was bloody stupid. Really stupid. She needs to think about what she did.

Your mum overstepped, but frankly, your sister was being stupid and your mum was trying to point that out. (but don't ever leave a bag unattended. I will report them every bloody time, and have closed down a station before because of an unattended bag)

Have you not noticed the IRA haven’t been active for 20 years?

surely if we were being that observant we could identify that the bombings of the last 20 years have been suicide bombers?

I think a few of you might also be surprised by the security services response (in GB at least) as i suspect they won’t be as distressed as posters seem to imagine either

When was the last time someone detonated a bomb concealed in a bag at a uk airport?

if one were an expert in assessing risk, that would be the clearest indicator of likelihood wouldn’t it?

Maybe that's because most people aren't stupid enough to take care of a stranger's property in one?

Ah, I see, so concealed bag bombing stopped because the public are too smart to mind the bombers bag for them? Interesting take.

Would it? I'm struggling to understand the logic behind thinking no recent airport bomb threats making one less likely. I don't think bomb threat risk assessment works that way.

Yes that is literally how risk assessment works. Likelihood vs severity.

Responses here are batshit. She wasn’t asked to bring the bag through security, just to keep an eye on it. There is no risk to anyone doing this, just because it’s in an airport. Let’s say sniffer dogs come by and find it full of drugs. It doesn’t belong to OP’s sister, nothing in it can prove it does, all she has to do is say it isn’t hers, someone left it there. The abundance of security cameras will prove this to be the case.

Mum needs to back off and let her daughter live her life. Why do we think adult women need protection from themselves?

Monumentally stupid and dangerous to mind a stranger’s bag at an airport. I’m glad your mum went crazy. Maybe your sister will think twice about possibly becoming the idiot who allowed any number of disastrous outcomes.

Team mum. Some adult children are quite niave.

I agree. Back in the day, an unattended bag would lead immediately to the airport being cleared and bomb disposal called. Nowadays, there’s a tannoy announcement then it’s lifted and put through the back. If someone wanted to set off a bomb in an unattended bag, they could leave it, and walk to a safe distance in way less time than it would take for someone to spot it, report it and have the area made safe. There is no reason a person would need to ask someone to watch it.

Well I wouldn't be risking losing my flight over a stranger. And who hasn't the capacity to wheel a suitcase into a smoking area? Unless they were physically disabled then they'd have assistance?

Also if the suitcase turned out to be suspicious they might expect her to take responsibility for the contents.

💯 - someone watching it adds nothing. It would take minutes to detonate from a safe distance.

Who would expect her to take responsibility for a strangers bag contents?!?

Gawd knows but she's the one basically saying she is responsible for it. She'd have to tell someone if they didn't come back.

I'm pretty paranoid about airports but if they opened it and it had drugs or a bomb in and she's the last person to have been seen with it...I dread to think what a ballache that could become!

so no one would make her take responsibility for the contents then?

I also wondered why the smoker couldn’t take her bag with her. Seems a feeble excuse.

I wondered whether the smoker was testing the sister. If the sister was gullible enough to mind the bag, she could be gullible enough to help take it aboard or through security. The sister probably would think she was just being helpful, but ‘being helpful’ doesn’t stand up in the court off law.

Thank you but that's not the point I'm making. You appear to be saying that because there hasn't been a recent bomb threat that makes it less likely there will be one now.

Yes. Because that is true.

not a bomb threat, a bomb left by method of unattended bag- obviously- but I thought I better reiterate in case you pretend you didn’t know that.

im very surprised at some of the naivety here.

I would have lost my mind. That could have been a disaster for all of you and I’d be horrified. This isn’t about your sister’s rights, it’s truly a massive massive failure of common sense and I think your mum was totally right.

I would have immediately notified a member of the airport security staff, or a police officer if any were nearby, that there was an unattended bag.