ATLANTA — A Channel 2 Action News investigation has exposed a major security breach at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport involving airline workers.
The whistleblower told only Channel 2's Aaron Diamant how Spirit Airline workers side-stepped security rules for weeks while at work.
Whistleblower Billy Dunham's time as a supervisor for Spirit Airlines contractor at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport didn't last long, because he couldn't stay silent.
"There was a lot of mismanagement going on as far as the security issues," Dunham said.
A transition from one contractor to another forced Spirit Airlines to fly in more than a dozen airline staff to help with training.
Dunham says some of those reinforcements working Spirit's gates did not have airport-issued security ID access badges, which TSA requires for all Atlanta airport workers.
According to Dunham, unbadged visitors often worked beyond boarding doors in secure areas and around the airplanes.
Dunham told Diamant he let employees through using his badge several times.
Dunham says it was the only way to keep Spirit's Atlanta operation running.
"That's a security violation and they knew it and we knew it, but we didn't really have a choice," Dunham said.
Dunham says unbadged Spirit staff went through TSA passenger checkpoints using airline-issued gate passes.
"If you have a gate pass, that should get you no more than a boarding pass," security expert Brent Brown said. "People can malfunction equipment, they can jeopardize things. They don't have to be carrying guns or weapons through TSA."
Spirit Airlines released the following statement:
At this time, we are aware of 16 Team Members who travelled to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to support a transition from one Business Partner to another during approximately a two week period in late September to early October. Thirteen of these Team Members were fully SIDA badged at the airport and accessed the gate areas appropriately. Three of these Team Members used their Company-issued employee identification and gate passes to go through the normal TSA security screening checkpoint to perform their duties. These Team Members should not have used gate passes to access the gate areas. As soon as we became aware of this infraction, we ensured that it ceased immediately. However, it is important to note that these three Team Members all had passed ten-year FBI background checks and all were screened at the TSA checkpoint.
-Paul Berry, Director of Communicaitons