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A flight attendant who tried to smuggle almost 70 pounds (31.8 kg) of cocaine from Los Angeles International Airport has turned herself in to authorities, a report said on Thursday. Marsha Gay Reynolds, a JetBlue Airways flight attendant, and former Jamaican beauty queen, turned herself in to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in New York on Wednesday. It said that she would face a charge of possession with intent to distribute cocaine. It said that Reynolds was stopped at random during luggage-screening processes on Friday by a Transportation Security Administration officer at the airport. The report added that she kicked...

The same day bomb blasts in an unsecured part of Brussels' airport and transit system left dozens dead, the administration was set to miss a deadline mandating that the TSA answer whether U.S. airports are equipped to respond to a similar attack. Last fall, Congress enacted a law ordering that TSA must ensure that individual airports with a TSA presence have a plan in place to handle security incidents, including active shooters and terrorist attacks. The law was in response to a TSA officer who was gunned down at Los Angeles International Airport in 2013. A report on those plans...

If there’s anything Americans love, it’s firearms, but try taking your piece – or something that looks like it – to the airport. Yeah … good luck getting through a TSA checkpoint with that. A woman going through the Baltimore-Washington International airport learned this the hard way when she had to sacrifice fashion in order to get to her final destination on time.

While a TSA agent pawed my hair bun this weekend, presumably on high alert for improvised explosive bobby pins, I pondered the latest news on the Somalia airplane terror attack. Intelligence officials released video footage of airport employees in Mogadishu handing a laptop to a jihadist suspect before he boarded Daallo Airlines Airbus Flight D3159 last week. The device allegedly contained a bomb that exploded on the plane, which created a massive hole out of which the bomber was fatally sucked. Two other passengers were injured in the blast before the pilot successfully made an emergency landing. Several airport workers...

Government oversight officials informed Congress on Wednesday that the Transportation Security Administration continues to operate in disarray, failing to record basic security details for thousands of employees and not tracking official IDs and badges that allow access to the most sensitive areas of an airport. Lawmakers described the security agency as operating "in chaos" and expressed frustration with Obama administration officials as they informed the House Oversight Committee about a range of security shortfalls that continue to endanger the nation's 450 commercial airports. TSA's inability to properly screen and track employees has been well documented for years. However, the administration...

Passengers arriving at Kennedy Airport on an international flight were allowed to exit the busy hub without going through Customs -- for at least the second time in recent months, the Daily News has learned. Bumbling airline and security officials let travelers on American Airlines Flight 1223 from Cancun, Mexico, out of the airport on Monday morning without having their passports or bags checked, sources told The News. The security lapse mirrored a similar incident involving another American Airlines flight in November. A 34-year-old man who had been in Cancun to attend three Phish concerts told The News he was...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Dozens of contracted airport workers and allies were arrested today at demonstrations in cities including New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Newark, NJ, Washington, DC, Portland, Ore., Seattle, Chicago and Miami as part of a national airport workers' civil disobedience against the injustices and inequality that persist at airports across the country. The men and women who keep our airports running took action to commemorate MLK Day and to reclaim the dignity that should come with a hard day's work, a central tenet of Dr. King's vision for a just society.

(Watch video at link) Father Kevin Payne is outraged after what he has deemed as a line-crossing two-minute pat down of his 10-year-old daughter Vendela by TSA at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The additional security was triggered by a juice pouch Vendela accidentally left in her carry-on bag. "It was excessive, it was invasive, I was pretty much boiling in my head," he told ABC News. (source) Payne recorded the pat down on his phone and uploaded the video to YouTube despite the fact that the TSA agent lied and told him that filming was not allowed (it absolutely...

Maybe I'm over reacting ? I would have no problem submitting myself for a pat down, I support a high level of security, but I feel invasive touching of Children crosses the line, unless credible evidence exists. On 12/30/15 TSA ordered a full Pat Down of my 10 year old daughter & detained us for over an hour (see YouTube video of the Pat Down, the link is below) TSA policy states PAT Downs of children under 12 should be method of last resort. In my 10 yr old daughter's case, after clearing metal detector, a forgotten Capri Sun juice...

The federal government has denied a request from the state's political leaders for more time to get compliant with the new Real ID requirement,but it won't immediately imperil the ability of Minnesotans to board commercial flights after Jan. 1.In a letter sent Monday,two assistant secretaries at the Department of Homeland Security wrote to Gov. Mark Dayton that "Minnesota has not provided adequate justification for continued noncompliance with the Real ID standards that would warrant granting your request for extension,"the letter stated.That means Minnesota driver's licenses are officially not sufficient identification for the general public to be allowed on U.S. military...

A Syria-born US citizen was accused of smuggling military-style gear, including rifle scopes, night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests, to Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants. Prosecutors say he planned to take $30,000 worth of items and train people in Syria. Amin al-Baroudi, a 50-year-old of Syrian descent, is facing four charges of violating US sanctions against Syria, the Associated Press reported. According to the federal prosecution, al-Baroudi traveled to Turkey from Los Angeles in February 2013 with a total of 14 pieces of checked luggage weighing 619 pounds (about 280 kg). He returned to the US the next month with only two bags. The...

Think you only need a passport to board an international flight? In 2016, some fliers better have one to fly domestic, which means they had better be paying their taxes. It now looks as though your passport could be cancelled if you owe the IRS. The Real ID Act created a national standard for state-issued IDs. It hits air travel in 2016. Some states initially refused to comply, fearing that the feds would make a national database of citizens. Others cited high administrative costs and a 50% increase in fees for drivers. Most states are OK, but millions in Louisiana,...

A retired truck driver flying through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is warning American flyers their experience may not be secure, after he was able to pass a loaded handgun through a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint. Speaking to Britain’s Daily Mail, the flyer says while packing his gun was purely accidental, he feels the TSA should have caught it prior to departure. The incident happened on November 5, as 67-year-old Blake Alford was preparing to fly from ATL to Chicago Midway Airport (MDW). In his bag was a Ruger .38 pistol, loaded with a full magazine of seven hollow-point bullets....

If you have followed the news headlines lately, you know that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) – the bureaucracy responsible for ensuring the safety of our nation’s travelers – has seen better days. An internal investigation released in June found that the TSA had a stunning 96 percent failure rate in detecting weapons and fake explosives. More recently, a report from “The Today Show” revealed that NBC producers were able to pass airport security with Swiss army knives and box cutters in tow. Comforting, huh? While knives and weapons may make it past airport security all too often, your handgun...

Congressional Democrats are trying to build support for an effort to bar gun purchases by terror suspects, hoping to take advantage of the same public anxieties about security that gave Republicans a ringing House victory. The Democratic push seems likely to fall victim to opposition from the National Rifle Association and congressional gun-rights backers, chiefly Republicans, who have smothered firearms curbs for years. If the Republicans who control Congress block votes on the proposal, Democrats hope to profit politically by winning sympathy from angry voters. ...

Four people were removed from a Chicago-bound flight at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Tuesday morning after a passenger reported suspicious behavior as the plane taxied to the runway, officials said. Spirit Airlines Flight 969 was taxiing to the runway when the flight crew decided to return to the gate, Maryland Transportation Authority Police spokesman 1st Sgt. Jonathan Green said. The captain asked police to remove three men and a woman from the plane, he said. Police are investigating the four people, he said. "While the aircraft was taxiing to the runway, a passenger alerted a flight attendant of...

61 firearms were discovered this week in carry-on bags around the nation. Of the 61 firearms discovered, 54 were loaded and 18 had a round chambered. . . . A checked bag at Anchorage ignited on a conveyor belt after strike-anywhere fire-starters self-ignited due to vibrations on the conveyor belt combined with the way they were packaged. In addition to fire-starters, strike-anywhere matches are prohibited as well.

Before the Russian Airbus 321 was blown apart 30,000 feet over the Sinai by what a growing consensus of intelligence experts believe to be a bomb planted by a passenger or airport worker, a man who would later fight and die for the Islamic State (IS) worked at the Minneapolis airport with security clearance and access to the tarmac and aircraft. It could have happened here. It may yet. As Investor’s Business Daily reported in September, 2014: Fox affiliate KMSP-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul has reported the case of Abdirahmaan Muhumed, who, before he went to Syria to fight and die...

As investigators search for the cause of a plane crash that killed 224 people over the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday and Russia suspends all flights to Egypt, U.S. officials said they are taking unspecified precautionary measures to enhance the security of flights from the Middle East. “While the facts and circumstances surrounding the tragic October 31 crash of Metrojet Flight 9268 on the Sinai Peninsula are still under investigation, Transportation Security Administrator (TSA) Peter Neffenger and I, out of an abundance of caution, have identified a series of interim, precautionary enhancements to aviation security with respect to commercial flights bound...

(CNSNews.com) - Coming soon, a new checkpoint experience for airline passengers. Testifying before a House Oversight subcommittee on Tuesday, Peter Neffenger, the new head of the Transportation Security Agency, said he envisions "a day where the checkpoint looks very different from what it does today. With the exception of the full-body scanners, "We're still largely dealing with ...the same kind of checkpoint we've had for the past decade or more. And I think we're on the cusp of a very different looking checkpoint experience in the next five years."