WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (AFP) - Plainclothes federal agents managed to smuggle weapons and explosives past security screening devices at several US airports in an undercover test conducted a year ago, according to a government report made public Thursday.
The test, conducted by the Department of Homeland Security`s Transport Security Administration (TSA) between July and November 2003, highlighted deficiencies in airport screening two years after the September 11 2001 attacks.
During the operation, TSA agents passed through security checks carrying the contraband on their persons or in carry-on luggage, said the public portions of the report, which did not disclose the exact nature of the smuggled material. Portions of the report were classified.
The operation took place at 15 US airports across the country, highlighting problems in detecting explosives such as those used to blow up two airliners in Russia last month, according to USA Today.
The national daily said Representative John Mica, chairman of a House Aviation Subcommittee, confirmed that weapons and explosives had been missed by airport screeners.
The results on weapons were "bad enough," he said, but those on explosives were "absolutely horrendous."
The federal government assumed oversight for airport security following the September 11 attacks in which hijackers crashed four passenger airplanes in New York, Washington and a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people.
As he released part of the report to Congress on Wednesday, Homeland Security Inspector General Clark Ervin said the performance of airport screeners "was poor," according to USA Today.
The report blames the failure to detect weapons on four areas which need improvement: training, technology, procedures, and management.
"The lack of recurrent training led to many of the checkpoints test failures," the report says. It proposes that airports use X-ray machines that show objects in three dimensions.
In another test conducted by the Homeland Security department last year, plainclothes agents smuggled guns, knives and box cutters through airport security.
The TSA meanwhile announced installation at three additional airports of a new "explosives trace detection document scanner that can `sniff` passenger documents such as boarding passes and drivers` licences for traces of explosives."
The device was installed at Washington`s Reagan National Airport two weeks ago, and will be installed at Los Angeles International, New York`s Kennedy International and Chicago`s O`Hare International.
US officials said other improvements have been made since the latest undercover test.
"They made recommendations on how to improve it, there were deficiencies in it," said Asa Hutchinson, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security at Homeland Security.
"We increased training. We responded to this. We have changed our protocols and I believe the system is much more improved as a result of the changes that were made," Hutchinson told CNN, adding that more physical "pat-down" searches of passengers are now being carried out at airports.