Airport security lapses 'astounding' nationwide

By Blake Morrison
USA Today

Screeners at 32 U.S. airports failed to detect hundreds of knives, guns or simulated explosives in tests conducted by government investigators in the months after Sept. 11, USA Today has learned.

A security breach at the San Francisco International Airport earlier this year forced the evacuation of thousands of travelers. Advertiser library photo • Jan. 30, 2002

The tests, ordered by President Bush, were conducted by the Transportation Department's inspector general from November through early February, when airports were on their highest alert.

According to confidential memos sent to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and obtained by USA Today, investigators conducted 783 tests at airport screening checkpoints, and hundreds of tests in other areas of airport security.

In some of the tests, investigators tried to carry guns past screeners. In others, they wore knives or tried to slip simulated explosives through checkpoints.

The results:

• Investigators carried knives past screeners in more than 70 percent of tests.
• Screeners failed to spot guns in 30 percent of tests.
• Screeners failed to detect simulated explosive devices in 60 percent of tests.
• Investigators either secretly boarded an aircraft or gained access to the airport tarmac in 48 percent of tests.

Because results of the inspector general's undercover audits are considered "security sensitive" information by the Federal Aviation Administration and are not made public, comparing these failure rates to those of previous tests is difficult.

However, congressional testimony in September by the General Accounting Office indicates screeners fared better in FAA detection tests during the 1970s and '80s than they did after the terrorist attacks.

"I would say it's astounding and pretty incredible, given the high state of security awareness we were under during that period," said Reynold Hoover, a counterterrorism expert who conducts seminars on checkpoint screening. "There really wasn't the change we thought there was after Sept. 11."

The FAA and airlines were in charge of security during the period in which the tests were conducted. On Feb. 17, days after testing ended, the new Transportation Security Administration took control.

But screeners remain employed by private security companies, overseen by TSA officials.

"We still have the same people doing the same jobs they did before Sept. 11," Hoover said.

A senior TSA spokesman cited "dramatic changes" in security since the new agency took over. He said the inspector general's test results "re-emphasize and illustrate why the vigilance has to be doubled, and that's what we're doing."

David Barnes, a spokesman for the inspector general, would not say which airports were tested. The memo says only that airports "included major hubs as well as smaller airports such as Norfolk International."

The Airlines Committee of Hawai'i was in charge of security at state airports until mid-February, when airport security nationwide was taken over by federal authorities.

John Thatcher, executive director of the Airlines Committee of Hawai'i, said last night that he thought security at state airports was good during the months after Sept. 11.

"We thought Hawai'i had the best in the nation," he said. "And the most modern equipment, too. In the two years before 9-11, our people, in conjunction with the FAA concentrated on getting the maximum number of the most modern checkpoint equipment we could get."

In the next four weeks, 1,200 new supervisory screeners begin a 45-hour training program, then report to airports for two weeks of on-the-job training.

Whether the new approach or new workers will make airports safer quickly remains unclear.

Hoover calls the TSA's screener training program "an ambitious plan," but he says he expects dramatic improvements by November, when screeners become federal workers.

"Hopefully, you're going to be able to raise their skill level," he says.

Hoover cautions that screeners are only part of the problem. Tests of aircraft security and access were equally unsettling, he says.

"The ability to access aircraft in what is supposed to be the most secure area of the airport, that is pretty frightening," Hoover says. "The fact that they're able to get in shows that there's still a weakness in the control measures."