Senator: TSA’s failure in bomb tests ‘shocking’

Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) on Tuesday called for a “top-to-bottom” review of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after a report found its agents failed to find fake explosives and weapons in internal tests at almost all of America’s busiest airports. 

The report found airport security employees failed 67 of 70 internal tests, where undercover agents tried to pass through security while carrying fake prohibited items. 

Coats said in an interview with Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” show that the security test failures showed the TSA needs to undergo major changes. 

{mosads}“This is shocking. If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that it so shocking, it’s going to require immediate action,” he said. 

“This is got to be a top-to-bottom effort looking at the trainers, how we hire them, how we train them, how they perform their jobs, looking at the equipment that’s supposed to detect a lot of this stuff,” Coats continued. “Bring the CEOs in who make this equipment and say hey what’s happening here?  This has to be an all-hands-on-deck effort address this issue.” 

Acting TSA Administrator Melvin Carraway was removed from office after news of the failed tests became public on Monday, but Coats said in his interview that his ouster was not enough. 

“Everybody who buys an airline ticket is paying even more to send to TSA to keep us safe and do what needs to be done to prevent any kind of terror attack on airlines,” he said. 

“Too many people fly on too many planes and we know the intention is still there to bring these planes down.”

Carraway had been filling in at the TSA since the agency’s long-term administrator, John Pistole, retired at the end of 2014. 

President Obama nominated Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Neffenger to lead the TSA in April, but the pick has not yet been approved by the Senate. 

Members of Congress had previously criticized the president for not appointing a new leader more quickly.