Report: Steve Jobs Stopped At Japan Airport Over Ninja Stars

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said he?ll never come back to Japan after officials at an airport barred him from taking Ninja throwing stars aboard his private plane, SPA! magazine reported in its latest issue.

A security scan at Kansai International Airport, near Osaka, detected the weapons inside the executive?s carry-on luggage in July as he was returning home to the U.S. from a family vacation in Kyoto, the Japanese magazine reported, citing unidentified officials at the airport and the transportation ministry.

Jobs said it wouldn?t make sense for a person to try to hijack his own plane, according to the report. He then told officials he would never visit Japan again, the magazine reported. Apple declined to comment.

Takeshi Uno, a spokesman at Kansai airport, said a passenger using a private jet was stopped at the end of July for carrying shuriken, the Japanese word for Ninja throwing stars, according to a Bloomberg report. The passenger, whom Uno declined to identify because of the airport?s privacy policy, threw away the blades, he said. The airport doesn?t have separate boarding arrangements for private- jet users, Uno said.