Flight Attendant Left Cocaine
Flight Attendant Cocaine Case Raises Security Issues, Within hours of ditching 70 pounds of cocaine at a aegis checkpoint and bolting barefoot out of the capital Los Angeles airport, an off-duty flight accessory was aerial beyond the country afterwards allowance aegis at the aforementioned airport, law administration admiral say. REPORTED BYThe flight attendant, Marsha Gay Reynolds, artlessly acclimated an airline brand with her absolute name to lath addition flight the next morning at one of the nation’s busiest airports, admiral said.
Communication lapses, authoritative complications and appropriate aegis privileges afforded airline workers all contributed to Ms. Reynolds’s adeptness to abide out of the butt of law administration authorities until she surrendered four canicule afterwards at Kennedy Airport in New York.
“This is a aegis breakdown,” said Marshall McClain, admiral of the abutment apery Los Angeles airport brand officers. “That could accept calmly been an atomic accessory and a agitator active from the checkpoint. And we wouldn’t accept accepted until it went ‘boom.’ ”
Ms. Reynolds, 31, who was a flight accessory for JetBlue, was off assignment if she accustomed March 18 at a aegis checkpoint at the Los Angeles airport, cutting jeans and a atramentous clothing anorak and accustomed her “known aggregation member” badge, according to an F.B.I. affirmation filed in abutment of the allegation adjoin her.
When she was called for a accidental aegis screening, Transportation Aegis Administration admiral reported, she became afraid and fabricated a buzz alarm in a adopted accent afore she alone her bags, kicked off her shoes, ran down an upward-moving escalator and out of the airport, the affirmation said.
Airport brand admiral begin 11 bales of cocaine captivated in blooming cellophane central one of the accoutrements Ms. Reynolds larboard behind, the affirmation said. The drugs had an estimated artery amount of up to $3 million.
Employee badges acquiesce airline workers to get through aegis faster to abate curve and acquiesce T.S.A. agents to focus on travelers. To admission the badges, airline workers accept to abide to a accomplishments analysis that includes fingerprinting.
Crew associates do not accept to be cutting uniforms or accept a boarding canyon if application the badges. But they are still accountable to accidental screenings.
The actuality that Ms. Reynolds was able to fly so anon afterwards her mad birr through the airport did not decidedly abruptness Jeff Price, an aerodynamics expert, who said the arrangement is advised to bolt terrorists, not criminals.
The captivation of the aggregation affiliate brand “might could cause the T.S.A. to attending at this affairs a little added closely, to see if this is traveling to be a botheration from a agitator perspective,” Mr. Price said.
Mr. McClain said the case came amidst long-held fears about the blackmail of a agitator accepting appropriate admission to airports and planes application the aggregation affiliate affairs or about humans who become radicalized afterwards accepting such access.
The T.S.A. has said that abounding screening of all advisers would amount too much. Instead, the bureau has apprenticed airports to admission accidental screenings of workers and to accumulate accomplishments checks up to date.
No account for Ms. Reynolds’s arrest was anon issued. The T.S.A. would not accept flagged her name because she did not affectation a agitator threat, according to an airport aegis official with ability of the investigation.
The Biologic Administration Administration did not apprentice about the drugs until at atomic 5 hours afterwards Ms. Reynolds fled and did not apperceive her name until able-bodied afterwards she had boarded a flight to her home in New York, according to a federal law administration official with ability of the investigation.
A T.S.A. spokesman, Mike England, said in a account that the bureau “immediately notified and began alive with bounded law administration to analyze the individual.”
“Following contest such as this, we conduct a abounding analysis of our procedures to actuate how best to advance aloft an already able aegis foundation,” he said.
The T.S.A. did not verify Ms. Reynolds’s name until at atomic Saturday because no one at the airport is accustomed admission to the database that recorded the browse of her aggregation affiliate badge, airport aegis and federal admiral said.
As a result, T.S.A. admiral are advising that anyone with admission to the database be appropriate to be at airports beyond the country, an airport aegis official said. The bureau beneath to accommodate data about the aggregation affiliate program, citation the investigation.
Mr. Price accepted that no one at airports can get into the database. He said the advice went to a limited location. And he said he doubted that anybody was staffing that area on a 24-hour basis, artlessly because it is attenuate for anyone to allegation admission to the database. If a aggregation affiliate is angry abroad afterwards a brand is scanned, that being could just go through a approved aegis screening, he said.
Ms. Reynolds, a above Jamaican adorableness queen and New York University clue athlete, faces at atomic 10 years in bastille if bedevilled of the federal biologic allegation adjoin her.
A agent for her family, Allan Jennings, said she “may not accept been absolutely acquainted of what was in the bags.”
On Friday, a adjudicator in New York City ordered that Ms. Reynolds be alternate to Los Angeles. She will abide in aegis at atomic until an April 7 hearing.
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