Screener Fired for Not Finding Gun in Luggage
ATLANTA — A security screening supervisor at the Atlanta airport has been fired after failing to find a loaded gun while searching a passenger’s carry-on bag, officials said Tuesday.
The passenger was later arrested with the weapon at Philadelphia International Airport.
The supervisor hand-searched the bag Sunday but missed the weapon and a clip of ammunition, said James Loy, head of the Transportation Security Administration. The employee, who was not identified, was fired Monday.
“I just simply don’t know how the miss occurred, but the procedures were conducted as we would hope they would be,” Loy said Tuesday.
The supervisor worked for International Total Services Inc., a Cleveland company that handles security screening at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport.
Nancy Keller, 37, of Huntersville, N.C., allegedly put a carry-on bag containing a .357-caliber handgun through an X-ray machine at the Philadelphia terminal, where she was trying to make a connecting flight.
Keller was charged with boarding an aircraft with a concealed weapon and released on a bond of $100,000.
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