A recent test of security measures at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport revealed shocking results after the failure rate hit a worrying 95 percent.
Last week, security experts from Washington D.C. arrived to test the airport’s security measures. Operatives posed as passengers and attempted to sneak various banned items past security screeners, Fox 21 reported. They were successful far too often, reports say.
Seventeen out of 18 banned items were successfully brought through security and into the airport, federal agents said. The agents were able to sneak explosive materials, mockups of weapons, and even drugs through TSA security checks.
The security review was abruptly halted after the failure rate hit 95 percent, sources said.
This is the second massive security failure at Minneapolis-St. Paul International. In April of 2016 security agents were able to sneak nine out of 12 items past the airport’s TSA security check points, the government reported.
A TSA spokesman would not confirm the latest failure to the media saying only, “TSA cannot confirm or deny the results of internal tests and condemns the release of any information that could compromise our nation’s security.”
This is far from the first black eye for the Transportation Security Administration. In April of last year, ABC discovered that hundreds of TSA workers had failed drug and alcohol tests at airports all across the U.S.
“Nationwide, 858 TSA workers tested positive for drugs or alcohol between 2010 and 2016, according to federal records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request,” ABC reported.
Security tests have found major failures before, as well. In June of 2015, the failures were so pervasive that acting TSA director Melvin Carraway was reassigned after screeners failed to detect explosives and weapons.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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