Channel 2 airport breach investigation getting congressional attention

ATLANTA,None — A Channel 2 Action News Investigation revealed a huge breach in airline security and prompted a congressional response to our findings. Investigative reporter Aaron Diamant received an email Friday afternoon from Rep. Mike Rogers' office expressing his interest to have the Transportation Security Administration investigate immediately.

Rogers chairs the house subcommittee on Transportation Security and upon seeing our Channel 2 Action News Investigation he is asking the TSA to investigate the security holes the investigation revealed.

A whistleblower took undercover video inside of Gate Gourmet's Hartsfield-Jackson facility where workers have direct access to planes.

"I can bring a gun in there if I want to, a bomb, anything. That's how easy it is," said our Whistleblower.

The undercover video showed employee's piggybacking through security turnstiles and inside, rows of unsealed catering carts ready to be loaded onto planes. According to federal law all catering supplies, "must be sealed to ensure easy visual detection of tampering."

"They're not doing that at all, ... period," our whistleblower told Diamant.

Diamant brought all of this to the company's security staff and the TSA nearly a month ago.

Our whistleblower confirmed Friday that nothing has changed at Gate Gourmet.

"That tells me very bad things," said air safety expert John Nance.

Diamant shared the findings with Nance several weeks ago and upon updating him Friday afternoon Nance was even more emphatic telling Diamant, "There is no excuse, none, zero, zilch. Once you have been told that you've got this problem in the ranks, to not fix it immediately."

Gate Gourmet has yet to even acknowledge the problem.

"They've got to do something about it yesterday, if not immediately," Nance said.

Nance told Diamant the same goes for the TSA. "There is only one reason for the TSA's existence, and I can tell you this, because I helped create them and that is to protect transportation security," Nance said.

http://bcove.me/3pf3qqtz

So far, Diamant's repeated attempts to find out if the TSA is, at least, looking into Channel 2's findings yielded no response.

"In fact, they have not moved on this, then that is the stuff on congressional investigations," Nance said.

Diamant was in contact with congressional staff all across the country on Friday, including Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson and Rep. Paul Broun of Athens. Broun and Isakson sit on the Aviation Security Committees and Diamant has asked them to weigh in.
 
Diamant also reached out to Gate Gourmet  and they said the security rules they follow are set by the TSA.

A TSA spokesperson responded to Diamant Friday night saying, "We look foraward to working directly with the Chairman on this issue."

WSBTV