The attack at SAW was a mortar fired from well outside the airport boundary (same as the IRA did once at London Heathrow, and in those days most of the IRAs funds came from the USA!). The denials were correct, terrorists had not breached airport security which as you suggest would have been an appalling failure.

I agree with the other posts, Turkey has a much more of a security problem than most other countries. They are for example doing much more for Syrian refugees than the whole of Europe and the US combined, they have started issuing work permits to refugees. That alone is probably doing more for our colective security than anything else.