Nearly half of the explosives-detecting K-9 teams at the three major New York area airports failed their annual certification test – and the fall guy was the human half.
A source close to the testing said five of 12 of the Port Authority’s Explosives Detection Canine Teams flunked.
Four failures were chalked up to human error by the cop half of the team, while only one resulted from a confounded canine.
“Five of the 12 teams did not pick up certain items – one dog and four cops,” the source said.
The drug-ferreting teams will undergo 60 to 100 days of recertification, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which funds the program.
The two- and four-legged members will not be grounded entirely – they just won’t be able to continue in the areas they were found lacking, a source said.
Citing security reasons, FAA officials refused to confirm or deny the report or give any details on what allegedly tripped up the bomb-busters. But the agency claimed there would be no security lapse during the recertification process.
“It’s our position there are sufficient numbers of teams,” said FAA spokesman Jim Peters.
Peters said the situation “is not unprecedented but also not common.”
The Port Authority, which operates Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark airports, also said there was no cause for alarm.
“We have an adequate number of FAA-certified canine teams to respond to security issues at the airports,” said Bill Cahill, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
“This is a new program, still being refined, but it is just one element of an airport security system that includes electronic monitoring, close coordination with anti-terrorism units worldwide and other measures.”
The K-9 team must score at least 92 percent on the test, which includes 26 decoys, officials said. For instance, if a dog sniffs out a dud as an actual explosive, points are deducted.
Port Authority public-safety director Fred Morrone said the failure was the first since the project was instituted in 1997 under the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act.
The certification program did not affect the five canine teams in the narcotics-interdiction teams, which rung up some $20 million in confiscated drugs and cash in 1999, the Port Authority said.