"Security lapses found at Houston airport"

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Security lapses found at Houston airport 
The Associated Press

 
HOUSTON - A Department of Homeland Security report found security weaknesses
at William P. Hobby Airport, one of the city's two airports, two Texas
congressmen said yesterday - a day after two security officials at the
airport abruptly resigned. 

The investigation was conducted by the Homeland Security's Inspector
General's Office and the federal Transportation Security Administration
after Hobby Airport security employees said unscreened baggage was allowed
onto passenger aircraft at least twice this year, in violation of federal
rules. 

The agency's report of the investigation was classified, but Democratic
Reps. Nick Lampson and Jim Turner said it supported the employees'
allegations. 

On Thursday, two security officials at Hobby resigned - the federal security
director and his assistant. Both cited personal reasons. 

Andrea McCauley, a spokeswoman for the TSA, said the resignations had
nothing to do with investigations. 

Turner, a member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security,
disputed that. "It's no coincidence," he said. 

"We've spent literally billions of dollars since Sept. 11 to make aviation
secure and yet this investigative report reveals aviation is not yet
secure," Turner said. 

He cited earlier disclosure of problems at the airport in Newark, N.J., as
an indication that security breaches were not exclusive to the Houston
airport. 

In July, The Seattle Times revealed the problems in Houston and systemic
gaps in airport security nationwide, created in part by understaffing and
other workplace problems at TSA, the federal agency created after the 2001
terrorist attacks. 

In the Times series, screeners and supervisors from Houston complained that
managers had directed luggage go unscreened for weapons or explosives before
being put on flights. The screeners complained to the Texas congressional
delegation after one such lapse in March, a day after terrorists bombed the
railway system in Madrid, Spain. 

In the March incident, a baggage conveyor belt jammed. To cope with a deluge
of bags once the belt was fixed, managers told the screeners to inspect only
the bags they could and send the rest on their way to the planes, screeners
told The Times. 
 
The screeners ignored the order and examined every bag they touched. But two
managers stepped in and threw bags onto the outgoing conveyor belt. One
screener counted more than 80 bags that went unscreened, according to
interviews and the screeners' letter to Congress. 

Then in June, a power outage led to a similar problem, said several
screeners. That time, managers told screeners to unload a conveyor belt and
leave more than 200 bags piled on the floor. Southwest Airlines employees
then loaded the bags onto baggage carts and took them to waiting planes. 

The Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General, the watchdog arm of
the department, began investigating security lapses at the airport before
The Times published its series, according to a TSA spokeswoman. Screeners at
the airport said that investigators reappeared at Hobby Airport after the
Times series was published. 

Yesterday, screeners there said the mood was upbeat after the resignation of
the top officials. 

"Everybody kind of sees the light at the end of the tunnel," said one
screener. "Maybe they'll listen to us now."


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