TSA Snafu Damages Nine Planes at O’Hare Field – Pilots Furious with Misstep
Nine American Eagle airplanes were grounded Tuesday after a TSA inspector, conducting an overnight security check, used sensitive instrument probes to climb onto the parked aircraft at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. A TSA official confirmed the incident.
The TSA agent, as part of spot inspection of aircraft security, climbed onto the parked aircraft using control sensors mounted on the fuselage as handholds, according to a TSA official.
“Our inspector was following routine procedure for securing the aircraft that were on the tarmac,” said the official. The TSA agent was attempting to determine if someone could break into a parked aircraft, according to the agent.
Pilots were furious at the TSA misstep.
“The brilliant employees used an instrument located just below the cockpit window that is critical to the operation of the onboard computers,” one pilot wrote on an American Eagle internet forum. “They decided this instrument, the TAT probe, would be adequate to use as a ladder,” the pilot wrote.
Another pilot wrote the TSA agents, “are now doing things to our aircraft that may put our lives, and the lives of our passengers at risk.”
The TSA has been conducting such overnight spot checks at airports around the country.
Source: ABC