Airport security

GAO: TSA’s Airport Perimeter Security Strategy Needs An Update

Weaknesses in the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) oversight of airport perimeter security and access controls may be putting the nation’s civil aviation system at grave risk, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

On April 20, 2014, a teenager scaled a perimeter fence and sneaked on to the airfield of Mineta San Jose Airport and hid in the wheel well of a Maui-bound flight. This is not an isolated incident. Intruders breach airport fences every 10 days, according to an Associated Press investigation.

In addition, a number of security events over the past several years involving aviation workers using access privileges to smuggle weapons and drugs into security-restricted areas have raised serious concerns over access control security.

In 2015, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety inspector reportedly bypassed security and flew from Atlanta to New York with a gun in his carry-on baggage. The incident followed closely on the heels of the arrest of a Delta Airlines worker for involvement in a plot to smuggle 153 guns onto a flight from Atlanta to New York City.