TSA Staff at JFK Fails to Detect Box Cutters in Passenger’s Carry-on Luggage

posted at 12:39 pm on March 2, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ National Defense ]   

Amid a flurry of horror stories late last year about invasive pat downs and radiation risks from scanners at airport security checkpoints, Americans were assured by no less than the president himself that there was no alternative—that the extreme measures the TSA was authorized to take were absolutely necessary and the only way of keeping us safe.

It will be interesting to get the president’s take on the most recent breach in those many layers of protection which he and his counterterrorism team are constantly monitoring and evaluating.

It occurred last Saturday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, one of the busiest airports in the nation, when a passenger was waved through security despite having weapons in his carry-on luggage. To add insult to injury—and revive some very unpleasant memories—the weapons in question were box cutters, just like the ones brandished by the 9/11 hijackers.

The New York Post quotes a member of the Port Authority Police Department as saying:

In case anyone has forgotten, the TSA was created because of a couple box cutter incidents.

A spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, Ann Davis, is also quoted,  saying that the agents and supervisor who failed to detect the blades at a security checkpoint “will all be disciplined and undergo remedial training.”

The incident happened at around 10 p.m. The passenger carrying the box cutters, Eusebio D. Peraltalajara, later told authorities that he used the tools on the job at the Secaucus manufacturing plant where he works. He explained that he had simply forgotten they were in his luggage and was released without any charges brought. The presence of the tools became apparent after Peraltalajara had boarded Flight 837, bound for Santiago. As he was stuffing one of his bags into the overheard compartment, the cutters fell out.

Spokeswoman Davis was quick to put the embarrassing incident behind her, assuring the traveling public that the TSA is still ahead of the curve:

There have been a number of additional security layers that have been implemented on aircraft that would prevent someone from causing harm with box cutters.

They include the possible presence of armed federal air marshals, hardened cockpit doors, flight crews trained in self-defense and a more vigilant traveling public who have demonstrated a willingness to intervene.

Maybe additional lines of defense have been added into the mix, but it’s hard to get all warm and cuddly after witnessing how effortlessly an unsuspecting blue collar worker smuggled deadly weapons through the first of those seemingly impenetrable layers.

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Cross-posted at the Examiner. Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

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