A woman skipped the TSA ID checker at the Nashville airport, since she didn’t have a boarding pass to fly that day. She went through regular screening, and proceeded to an American Airlines gate – where she got on a flight to Los Angeles without a boarding pass.
She was questioned by the FBI in Los Angeles, but not charged. The TSA now says it “is now upping their security measures” at the airport by blocking off the lanes that are not in use.
After the woman jumped the barrier on Feb. 7, she filed into a line to have her bag(s) screened, TSA adds. TSA said in a statement the woman was able to board a flight, adding that she did not have a boarding pass.
#BREAKING out of Nashville. @TSA confirmed a woman breached airport security @Fly_Nashville and was able to board a flight without a ticket. @FOXNashville
— Sydney Keller (@sakeller21) February 14, 2024
NEW INFO: FBI confirms with me that the woman was flying American Airlines and made it all the way to Los Angeles. @FOXNashville https://t.co/eFBg6Q9ZT6
— Kylie Walker (@kyliewalkertv) February 14, 2024
TSA emphasizes that the passenger “was physically screened, along with their carry-on items, without incident at the Nashville International Airport security checkpoint on February 7th before boarding the flight.” The implication is that the lapse by TSA, allowing someone without a boarding pass through the checkpoint, wasn’t a big deal. But if that were true, why have ID checks in the first place?
The reason we have to show ID (or otherwise be identified) is to check passenger identities against government targeting databases. There’s no point in adding someone to a no fly list if they can just change the name they’re traveling under.
Of course those lists themselves are highly flawed: not subject to due process, people get added by mistake or in retaliation for refusing to cooperate with government agencies, so being on such a list doesn’t correlate with actually being a terrorist. There are two million people on these watchlists. When everyone’s a terrorist, nobody is.
Interestingly, as TSA has replaced showing a boarding pass with just requiring ID (and matching IDs to airline reservations), people increasingly go through checkpoints without actually being checked in for their flights.
Ah yes, internal passports to travel within one’s own country–which of course leads to a record of where you have been. I believe the Soviets pioneered that system. But since you can travel without an ID (provided other criteria are met) it will be interesting to see how the feds handle that. And regarding the useless lists, furtive, duplicative, and with gaps, when everyone’s a suspect…everyone is a suspect! They are just an admission that the screening processes in place aren’t fully trusted, but never mind. It takes a certainly kind of institutional fear to live like that.
No boarding pass, allowed to board – American Airlines – again.
No mention of the fact that AA just let her waltz on to the plane without a boarding pass. I hope the gate agent (likely one now?) was running around for DO, not processing upgrades, so she maybe she could just slide into an F seat… unnoticed?! As, apparently, pre-departure passenger counts are no longer a thing either. SMH.
it is bad enough that BNA has holes in their process that allow people to jump past the ID screening process but even worse that she was able to board a flight where she should have been scanned on with a boarding pass. At least the TSA ultimately screened her. I’m sure the TSA reviewed video to figure out how they failed and stronger barriers between the passenger lines and the security lines were breached.
Was she a stowaway, or had she paid for her ticket but forgot to get the boarding pass? I hope the FBI checked THAT when they questioned her.
Wonder if the is the same woman who has made it her life’s mission to see how many planes she can board without a ticket. I thought she was charged for this years ago. At any rate, the pre-departure head count was apparently off by one or she was possibly hiding in the Lav.
If you think TSA will get better because of this, you are dreaming.
@David R Miller
On Feb 20th you said this site is “dead to you”.
Your words mean nothing.
Leave!
ze-brat — I think I will just stick around since my presence and truthful comments seem to bother you so much. — These words DO mean something – they irritate you!
@Zebratis: is this alleged comment of David R Miller supposed to have happened last year on February 20? Or can you see the future?
BNA opened a new screening area on the right side that doesn’t have lanes like the old screening area that was in the center of the terminal. It’s now a group of agents spread out at individual desks with no barriers. When they are busy people are bunched up in groups instead of a line. Unless they go back to single file lanes just wait till it’s busy and you could just walk right through.
This is entirely on AA for not checking her boarding pass. If she got on with a knife, that would be on TSA. She didn’t. But she was able to board an aircraft with no ticket and, thus, not even a seat. Yet she made it all the way to LAX as a stowaway. In no way is the TSA to blame for that.
Angry Flyer – I agree, that is exactly what I said.
TSA, one of the worst departments ever formed by the government and that’s saying something. They are little more than theater.
SFO has private security instead of TSA. Every airport should follow SFO’s example. The arbitrary hostile treatment TSA doles out is consistently the worst part of commercial air travel.
When everyone is a terrorist, no one is, but at least they’re not also in the TSS Pte line.
But isn’t this SOP with CPB and the undocumented border crossers that they fly to northern cities?
I was discriminated against numerous times during COVID document checks flying into the USA from overseas, the last few years, while foot traffic from Mexico had no such requirement. And they are escorted onto commercial flight without documents that I’m required to show to fly.
I give up trying to understand or explain this. Just gjive me my miles and my status, already.
@Sammons – it was Feb 10th, 2024. (Small keyboard, large human)
@David R. loves to carry on, and on that day he was in fine form saying this site was dead to him.
But yet he remains knowing that Gary will not block him.
But it was his own choice to say that this site was dead to him. Obviously, we can’t belive anything he says, because words seem to have no meaning to him.
Thanks for the question! Have a great day!
(Not you @David R… per your own choice, you shouldn’t be here)
Why not? The illegals get to. They can walk right through. No ID, no xray.
BigTee – Your question should be asked of the current administration – the corrupt, America hating DemocRats. The “foot traffic” you allude to are future DemocRat voters that the DemocRat are recruiting with the open southern border.
Maybe it is a One World thing: BA just brought a man from Manchester to JFK without boarding pass or passport. That is quite an accomplishment… https://news.sky.com/story/man-charged-after-flying-from-london-to-new-york-without-a-ticket-or-passport-13069184
Hmm, not to embarrass anyone, but why in any rational world would you use an actual driver’s license as the clickbait tease to suck us in to this abyss? Every Nigerian Future Diversity Hire Senior Command Pilot working the internet cafes of Abuja just got a legitimate license document to work with. Smooth move ExLax.
@Mike – the name on the driver’s license leads me to believe that it might not be real.
That’s not an actual driver’s license. It’s just lifted from Google images. Search ‘Hawaii drivers license’; it’s right there.
Have y’all not ever heard of Superbad (2007) ?!?!?
It’s McLovin’s fake ID.
T S A= “too stupid for America” or “thousands standing around”.
In response to drrichard’s point: privacy is a thing of the past. The internal passport is not necessary, because EVEN if one were to pay cash for everything (not easy to do, and rare), the ubiquitous smart phone will give away your location past and present. We’re screwed.