WashingtonWire - 2004-10-04

Undercover Auditors Get Banned Items Past Airport Security…

Federal investigators this month issued more criticism of "too porous" airport security, with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General saying its undercover agents were able to get prohibited items through checkpoints.

Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said his office set out to replicate a similar test of airport screening by Transportation Security Administration personnel after a separate audit of airport security by the U.S. Department of Transportation between November 2001 and July 2002. Ervin's probe, which replicated DOT's methodology, was conducted between July 2003 and November 2003 and found many of the same vulnerabilities. "Improvements are needed in the screening process to ensure that dangerous prohibited items are not being carried into the sterile areas of heavily used airports or do not enter the checked baggage system," Ervin said in his report, issued in September. "Supervisors and screening managers needed to be more attentive in identifying and correcting improper or inadequate screener performance." Ervin said airport screeners need refresher training to supplement the 40 hours of classroom instruction and 60 hours of on-the-job training they currently receive. He also recommended screeners use new technologies, such as multi-view X-rays that provide high-resolution, three-dimensional images, better secondary screening of people who trigger metal detector alarms and the use of computer programs that simulate dangerous items in baggage to train screeners.

TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield Jr. said the audit is misleading because TSA already has implemented many of the recommendations in the report and employed new technologies. "The IG report does not provide an accurate picture of the current state of aviation security or the advances TSA has made in expanding our explosive detection capabilities," Hatfield said. "The report is based on field work that is 10 to 14 months old. Since that time, the agency has significantly fortified security procedures, testing and training in every area identified in the outdated report." For example, TSA announced it was implementing new machines that can detect traces of explosives on such paper documents as tickets and drivers' licenses. The first machines have been deployed at Los Angeles International, New York JFK and Chicago O'Hare airports. An earlier pilot program was conducted at Washington Ronald Reagan National Airport.

"TSA is committed to deploying new explosives detection technologies to passenger security checkpoints to safeguard the traveling public," said Rear Admiral David Stone, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for TSA. The machines will be in use at more than one dozen other airports in the next year, Stone said.

…As Screeners Get TSA Authorization For Pat-Downs

The Transportation Security Administration has authorized airport screeners to frisk passengers passing through security in the aftermath of the explosion of two Russian aircraft and in response to recommendations by the 9/11 Commission. The new procedures, which went into effect in September, require passengers to put jackets and coats through X-ray machines, including suit coats, blazers and other lightweight outerwear. Passengers selected for secondary screening may have to endure physical pat-downs. Rear Admiral David Stone, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for TSA, said, "These procedures are consistent with TSA efforts to improve and expand the use of technology to screen passengers for explosives at airport checkpoints across the country."

DOT: Air Traffic Controller Errors Are Underreported

Errors by air traffic controllers resulting in near collisions of aircraft are underreported because the system relies on the willingness of controllers and their supervisors to report their own gaffes, a government auditor said in a new report. Alexis Stefani, U.S. Department of Transportation Assistant Inspector General, said recording devices in place at slower centers that direct about one-quarter of the nation's air traffic controllers indicate a higher error rate than at the busiest 75 percent, where such devices are not installed. Last year, the slower centers accounted for 58 percent of mistakes compared with 42 percent at the busier centers.

"At the facilities that handle the most air traffic, the Federal Aviation Administration relies on supervisors and controllers to self-report when errors have occurred and does not have a system in place to verify that this reporting process is reliable," Stefani said in a Sept. 20 memo to FAA Administrator Marion Blakey. FAA, in a bid to improve safety, tracks cases in which controllers bring planes too close together. It reported 1,185 errors in fiscal year 2004, which ended Sept. 30—a 34 percent increase from fiscal 1998. FAA is trying to reduce serious errors by 15 percent by 2008 and has offered controllers a salary hike if they decrease mistakes by 3 percent.

Stefani said her investigation showed that in cases where FAA relies on self-reporting by controllers 22 percent of all errors stemmed from outside complaints. She said it is not "logical" that busier centers would have such a dramatically lower error rate than the slower centers. "While the actual extent of underreporting is unknown, in our view," she said, "these findings show FAA needs to take more aggressive steps to ensure that operational errors are more accurately reported."