WASHINGTON -- At least five bomb threats were reported on Tuesday against flights originating or landing in the United States, hours after serious safety breaches at dozens of the nation's busiest airports were revealed by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation.
Four of the five threatened flights, including each one from U. S. Airways, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and the Mexican carrier Volaris, had already landed. The fifth, Korean Air Flight23 from Seoul, was scheduled to land Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco, according to U.S. TV network NBC News.
Quoting anonymous government sources, the report said that the threats were not deemed credible.
Earlier on Tuesday, U.S. Airways flight 648, with 88 passengers and five crew on board, were searched when it landed at Philadelphia International Airport due to a possible security threat, the airline said.
The series of bomb threats came just hours after news emerged late Monday about serious security failures at dozens of the nation's busiest airports.
A recent DHS internal investigation showed that DHS agents posing as passengers were able to get weapons, sometimes even fake explosives, through the airport screening process in 67 out of 70 tests, with a staggering failure rate of 95 percent for the nation's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at airport checkpoints.
In one case, even though an alarm sounded, the screening officer failed to detect a fake plastic explosive taped on back of the DHS agent during a pat down.
It was not the first time that U.S. airport screeners failed to detect fake terrorists and weapons. In 2013, an undercover TSA agent with an improvised explosive device stuffed in his pants successfully passed two security screenings, including a pat down, and was cleared to go on board a flight at Newark Airport.
"After spending over $540 million on baggage screening equipment and millions more on training, the failure rate today is higher than it was in 2007. Something is not working," Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement.
Though the investigation report will not be released publicly till this summer, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement that he had already ordered the TSA to ensure that all screening equipment at U.S. airports is operating up to "the highest possible standards."
However, a new U.S. government report issued in May found that maintenance of airport screening equipment, including explosive detecting scanners and X-ray machines, were not managed properly.
"Consequently, the safety of airline passengers and aircraft could be jeopardized" if the TSA has to use other less effective screening measures after misfunction of the screening equipment, the report said. Enditem
