NBC News reported this afternoon that 11 people walked through a security lane unscreened in Terminal No. 5 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Monday morning and apparently boarded other flights.
None of the 11 passengers were checked by Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) personnel, said an airport official and a senior law enforcement officer. A senior government official told NBC News that the lane was about to open as a “precheck” lane but it wasn’t fully staffed and passengers shouldn’t have been allowed through.
The New York Daily News is reporting that TSA officials didn’t report the security breach to airport police for about two hours while the scoured the terminal, trying to locate the missing passengers.
In a statement, the TSA says that three passengers may not have been rescreened after they set off metal detector alarms. One law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the incident said there was surveillance video of the three setting off the alarms.
The Port Authority of New York confirmed that the 11 passengers walked through the TSA checkpoint at Terminal No. 5 at 6:00 a.m. this morning and they were not notified for two hours, blaming the TSA for the delay due to their agents trying to track down the unscreened passengers.
Three of the passengers were identified on videotape and knowing they boarded a flight for California, it is believed they will be screened when they get off the plane. The eight other people who passed through the checkpoint unscreened remain unidentified.
The TSA says that all the passengers’ carry-on bags were “screened and passed by a K9 team.” So they are “confident” this incident “presents minimal risk to the aviation transportation system.”
“Once our review is complete, TSA will take appropriate action,” the agency said, according to the Associated Press.
