A US Transportation Security Administration inspector testing security protocols at the Chicago O'Hare International Airport caused 15- to-45-minute delays for 40 American Eagle Embraer ERJ-145 flights departing the airport yesterday morning.
According to an American Eagle spokeswoman, an airline employee noticed a man hoisting himself up to the jet bridge close to an ERJ-145 at approximately 0530 yesterday morning using the pitot tube on the side of the aircraft near the closed and locked cockpit door for leverage.
American Eagle says its approved security procedures call for locking the cockpit door and pulling the jet bridge back after cleaning each aircraft after the day's flights are complete. "This is the first time that we have had a TSA agent climb upon an aircraft to do security checks," says the spokeswoman.
American Eagle says the TSA agent admitted to using the same procedure to eight other aircraft, all of which the airline then pulled out of service. Inspections, which took up to two hours to complete, revealed no damage and all aircraft were back into service by 1045 yesterday morning. "We did have to do some pretty significant juggling to make sure morning went off," says the spokeswoman.
TSA was not immediately available for comment.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
