Blundering TSA lets passenger on plane without screening
 

Umm... TSA turned him away at checkpoint... blundering TSA workers? If anything, this is reflective of the gaping hole that SIDA doors represent... The one who's at fault here is the airline rep who let him board the plane w/o boarding pass anyway, when they turn lawful pax away for not having one. Odd how that was ignored in the article.

Somehow?

I think that's SOP.

If the TSA agent knew this was the same person that was turned away at the checkpoint, TSA has a problem. If the TSA agent did not know this was the same person, then it doesn't seem like a TSA mistake, although I do wonder why so many people were watching a random person with a Delta ID going through an employee door.

That said, this is another example of what I think is the biggest flaw in TSA's SOP: an inability to stop someone inside the system from taking advantage of the system. (An earlier example is the TSA employees who were bribed to smuggle drugs through a checkpoint.) Who's watching the watchers?

My word for the day: Brilliant :rolleyes:

The TSA's word for the day: Spin :td:

Just another example of how ineffective the TSA is. All of the rules and harassing methods they have put in place, yet one of the more dimwitted employees with access made a total farce of security. They couldn't even catch up to him until after the flight.

What is happening there? He didn't have a SIDA badge or airline badge. He didn't go through the secure door. Did he was arrested or not? Depends if TSA or LEO will arrested him for charge with criminal trespassing or did TSA were let him go. They won't get press charges against him.

He did.

Um... TSA turned him away at the c/p.

Then TSA "workers" watched him attempt to access restricted areas with an unscreened bag at two separate points and failed to alert PAPD.

Then the TSA "workers" lost track of him.

Then the TSA "workers" decided, 45 minutes later, to alert PAPD about a suspected security breech.

Then, knowing that they had a potential security breech - i.e. an unscreened person inside the sterile area - TSA "workers" and "management" decided to forego their well established standard procedure of dumping the terminal, searching the sterile area, and re-screening everyone...

They also decided to forego their well established standard procedure of boarding the flight they knew the unscreened security risk person was heading for to attempt to locate him...

They also decided to simply allow that flight to take off undelayed.

As to boarding a flight without a BP... The guy is a Delta employee and the story says he had a "reservation", so the flight crew may have known him on sight and recognized his name on the manifest. Besides - do airline employees who fly standby have to have BPs? The Delta crew may very well have violated company policy by allowing him aboard without a BP, but seeing as how he was a Delta employee whom they probably knew on sight, and who had a legitimate reservation on the flight, and who held a SIDA badge and was legally authorized to be in the sterile area anyway, I'm not going to castigate them for that. A minor talking-to might be warranted. Maybe.

Face it - TSA "workers" are the morons in this case. The fact that someone else may have violated their company policy inside the sterile area, or that someone else may have allowed this guy on a plane when they shouldn't have, doesn't mitigate the fact that TSA completely screwed up in allowing the guy into the sterile area without being screened in the first place, and had over an hour's warning but still let the plane take off knowing there might be an unscreened person aboard.

Which as we know, but apparently not this TSA genius, that gets an airline & airport employee thru the checkpoint but not around it ;)

I don't suppose anyone got fired over this? ...oooh silly me

No, he didn't fired from the airline. He have a SIDA Badge. He's not suppose to get inside the aircraft. He didn't have a proper permission from station manager.

Discussion on the DL Forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...sa-jfk-t2.html

:)

Except a SIDA badge is proper, acceptable ID for the checkpoint. As a pass traveler he likely had a seat request card as well, but they'd never find out since they denied his proper ID.

The blunderings ran deep.

Don't know your frame of reference, but every US airport where I've taken the time to visualize the layout, a SIDA badge and PIN gets you through electronically locked but unguarded doors (ie around the checkpoint).
And many airports have an airport boundary employee entrance that lets employees through busloads at a time, ie way, way around the check-point.

See for instance the story of the ATL based gun toting FA, discovered at IND (?).

The script for security theatre wouldn't have it any other way.