A security screener at Osaka airport mistakenly returned a small knife to a passenger at a Japan Airlines checkpoint, the airline said Monday, marking the fifth inspection error at the airport in three months.

The inspector employed by security company Nishikei, which Japan Airlines Co. consigns security checks to, initially confiscated the knife when it was found in the bag last Friday.

But the inspector returned the knife by mistake along with the passenger's other baggage following the security screening, and noticed the mistake after the person left the checkpoint.

The flight to the southwestern Japan city of Fukuoka that the passenger took was delayed for several minutes, JAL said.

The number of passengers using the airport, only for domestic flights, increased for the seventh straight year to 16.3 million in fiscal 2018 amid a surge in foreign visitors to Japan.

At least four cases of erroneous security checks by the security company, also based in the city, were found from late September through November at the airport.

On Sept. 26, a folding knife was detected in a passenger's bag by an X-ray examination at an All Nippon Airways security checkpoint at the airport, but a Nishikei inspector let the passenger go through without confiscating it, according to consignor All Nippon Airways Co. The person was flying to Tokyo.

Several hours later, the airline suspended all its flights from the airport to re-examine the carry-on baggage of all passengers awaiting their flights, although several flights to Tokyo took off during the re-examination.

==Kyodo

© Kyodo News International, Inc., source Newswire