Checkpoint screeners at Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport failed to detect fake weapons in more than half of undercover tests by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last month, documents obtained by USA Today show.

        The tests, the first since the security agency began overseeing checkpoint screening in February, were done by agents who were instructed to do little to try to conceal the items as they passed through screening checkpoints, memos about the tests show.

        Overall, screeners missed simulated weapons in 24 percent of the tests at 32 of the nation's largest airports. Jacksonville and Las Vegas also failed at least half of the tests.

        Compared to CVG, Los Angeles International Airport had a better failure rate of 41 percent. Screeners repeatedly failed to find stainless-steel test pieces that set off metal detectors as guns might. Screeners also had trouble spotting simulated bombs.

        “A 41 percent failure rate is just pathetic,” says Jack Plaxe, an aviation security consultant. “There has to be problems with the people or their training.”

        Security screening at CVG has been handled since April by Huntleigh USA, a St. Louis-based company. Huntleigh took over for Argenbright Security, which earlier failed security tests, among other troubling practices.

        The TSA must have its own staff in place by Nov. 19, and is in Cincinnati today taking applications for federal airport screeners. (STORY)

        Airport spokesman Ted Bushelman said Sunday night of the report on security failures at his facility: “It's a moot question due to the fact that TSA is coming in (this week) and hiring 320 people as screeners ...

        “From what we gather, they're going to get more special training and a lot of training,” he said. “It'll make them more aware of the position they're in.”

        Nationwide, screeners often failed to find simulated weapons on agents after metal-detector alarms sounded. In 178 tries, screeners failed to find potentially dangerous items on agents in a third of the tests.

        At some of the 32 airports, agents conducted only a handful of tests. At the 12 airports where at least a dozen tests were conducted, the failure rate was 29 percent.

        The Aviation and Transportation Security Act mandates that TSA recruit, hire and train screening personnel to assume passenger screening responsibilities at the nation's 429 commercial airports.

        The documents detailing the test results, considered “security sensitive information” by the agency, are part of a series of undercover tests that are set to conclude today. The screeners who were tested had been trained by security companies that used to work for the airlines and which the Transportation Security Administration now oversees. Tens of thousands of them likely will be hired by the government by November, when screeners will become federal employees. The agency plans to deploy about 45,000 screeners by then.

        “The TSA is looking for problems in the system daily so we can fix them,” agency spokeswoman Mari Eder says of the tests. “We have issues to correct.”

        Of the 387 tests, 209 involved screeners operating X-ray machines. The failure rate was 16 percent. The other tests assessed whether screeners detected objects that set off metal-detector alarms.

        The results raise questions about whether screening has improved since the Transportation Security Administration took responsibility for overseeing airport checkpoints.

        In tests completed this year before the federal takeover, investigators with the Transportation Department's independent watchdog, the inspector general, found failure rates of nearly 50 percent at 32 airports that they tested.

        But the manner in which those tests were done differed from the TSA's approach. TSA agents were instructed to pack bags containing the simulated weapons “consistent with how a typical passenger in air transportation might pack a bag.”

        In particular, agents were told to avoid trying to “artfully conceal” the simulated weapons — a different tack from that used by the inspector general's investigators. They tried to simulate how a terrorist, not a “typical passenger,” might bypass security.

        TSA officials say their tests weren't intended to emulate the behavior of terrorists. Rather, officials say, they hoped to see whether screeners could spot basic items they had been trained to recognize.

        William A. Weathers of the Enquirer contributed to this report.

        Airport to get 320 screeners; job fair today

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