Oops, they did it again!
Bungling TSA screeners allowed yet another security breach at a New York-area airport when a mom was able to breeze through security with a steak knife meant to carve up her kid’s apple, sources said yesterday.
Despite pat-downs and X-ray scanners, the weapon got past the supposedly eagle eyes of the TSA at Newark Airport, and was revealed only by the woman herself, when she discovered it and sheepishly told JetBlue workers.
Evelyn Freay, 37, of Miami Lakes, Fla., was shocked when she found the blade inside her 1-year-old son’s carriage. She told agents she had no idea her mom had stowed it there with some fruit for the flight home.
“I’m sorry, my mom put it in there with an apple for the baby,” she told TSA agents, according to a source.
Freay was not charged with any crime, but the knife was seized and she was eventually allowed to book another flight.
A spokeswoman for the TSA said that the agency was reviewing the security breach.
The incident was the latest in a series of disturbing blunders that have plagued the agency.
On Feb. 26, Eusebio D. Peraltalajara, 45, a factory worker from Jersey City, tried to get on a JFK flight to the Dominican Republic with three boxcutters similar to the kind used to hijack airplanes in the 9/11 terror attacks, sources said.
Peraltalajara meant no harm, but his potential weapons got through screening and were discovered only when they fell out of his bag as he tried to load it into an overhead bin on a plane.
The TSA said that two agents and a supervisor would be disciplined for their role in that breach.
Two days earlier, a 30-year-old Maryland man with psychiatric problems was allegedly able to go through security at JFK Airport with a stolen boarding pass and board a plane.
Ronald Wong managed to get through the boarding-pass check at the start of the security line, and then passed the TSA screening without further challenge. He was caught only when airline employees discovered there was no seat for him on the plane.
He’s been charged by the feds with willfully entering an aircraft or airport in violation of security requirements, a misdemeanor. He was held yesterday without bail pending a psych hearing.
In addition to those incidents, a series of five recent breaches at Newark Airport led to a visit last month by a TSA senior official, who gave agents a stern talk and warned them to be vigilant.
Among the breaches that led to the high-level visit were a dead dog being allowed on a plane even though its carcass had not been checked for contraband or disease.
Additional reporting by Mitchel Maddux