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A secret memo obtained by The Post revealed astonishing security lapses at JFK Airport, including an “unsecured” gate on the fence protecting its giant fuel pipeline.
The blunder was discovered on Wednesday, although nobody knows just how long the gate was left vulnerable because a security camera was either malfunctioning or not designed to pick up the image, says the memo, which was written the same day.
The unprotected pipeline — the main jet fuel-supply line into the airport and once the target of a failed terror plot — is the latest in a series of security screw-ups at JFK.
The memo states that a worker — identified to The Post as Police Officer Joseph DeFelice — “found Gate 112 of the perimeter fence unsecured” at around 7:15 a.m. Wednesday.
He notified higher-ups — and “then secured lock on fence,” says the memo, which was sent by a PA cop to a superior.
“Tour commander was advised of condition,” the memo says, although a security-camera operator said he was “unaware of location of Gate 112 and contacted his supervisor to ascertain location.”
“It was then determined that no camera was able to observe Gate 112 area,” says the memo.
“Additional units were dispatched to Gate 112 area and upon arrival camera lost view of units.”
Gate 112 is a key location in the troubled $100 million Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, because it provides an entryway to the Buckeye pipeline, which carries 8.4 million gallons of fuel daily through the city to the airport.
It was the target of terrorists who were busted in 2007 for plotting to blow it up.
The gate is also near an active runway, 22 Left.
PA officials — including Executive Director Patrick Foye — last night scrambled to explain the situation in a conference call.
The memo is “a lie,” Foye said, although he could not explain how it was inaccurate.
Paul Nunziato, president of the PAPD union, was brought onto the call and immediately declared the memo “is not a lie.”
The Port Authority then had Officer DeFelice call The Post, and, with a union rep on the line, said the fence has two heavy chains and that one of them was unlocked.
He claimed he called in an “unsecure” chain, and could not explain why the memo said the gate was unsecure.
He said the unlocked chain was not a security risk, but could not explain why there were two chains on the gate.
DeFelice and the union rep agreed that the lack of camera coverage on the gate was a security lapse.
The PA denied a request to immediately view the fence.
The lapse comes less than a week after the $100 million Perimeter Intrusion Detection System was embarrassingly breached by a stranded jet-skier, who climbed over an 8-foot section of the fence and walked across two runways without being noticed, despite his wearing a bright-yellow life vest.
Since The Post broke that story, the PA has beefed up patrols and added a round-the-clock officer to the room where the fence is monitored by private security guards.
Officials at the PA, which operates JFK, may be summoned to Washington to explain themselves to the House Homeland Security Committee, its chairman, Rep. Peter King (R-LI), told The Post.
In February 2011, PIDS cameras did not detect the collapse of a 500-foot section of the fence during a snowstorm.
When PA cops finally discovered the problem, they went to the PIDS center to check on the fence but couldn’t see it on the camera.
“This is a severe security risk to the airport, traveling public and all who work at JFK,” said a report made at the time.