Authorities Investigate Security Breach At JFK After Man Flies To L.A. Without Ticket Or ID

Nigerian National Allegedly Used Univ. Of Michigan ID & Expired Boarding Pass

June 30, 2011 11:14 PM

(credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Reporting Hazel Sanchez

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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — How could it happen?

The FBI is investigating a major security breach at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Someone boarded a plane with a college ID and a bogus boarding pass her found on a subway train, reports CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez.

What authorities say Nigerian national Olajide Noibi pulled off was thought by many travelers to be impossible.

WCBS 880′s Pat Farnack With Former NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker

(Download the full interview HERE)

“For what we’ve been going through since 9/11, it’s intolerable,” Astoria resident Nicholas Christopher said.

“It’s very scary, especially when there’s thousands of people who travel every day,” added Long Island resident Elana Kaminsky.

Law enforcement officials say big mistakes were made on Friday. Noibi passed Transportation Security Administration screening at JFK and boarded Virgin American Flight 415 bound for Los Angeles, with a University of Michigan ID and with an expired boarding pass that belonged to someone else.

1010 WINS’ Carol D’Auria reports: Passengers Say Security Agents Fell Down On The Job

“That’s not great at all because then anybody can go through it,” traveler Julian Zapata said.

New York Congressman Peter King, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, is calling for an internal investigation. He said we’re lucky this doesn’t appear to be a terror plot.

“I have never seen a case with so many unanswered questions. Nothing here adds up. All this can do is hurt morale. All this can do is hurt public confidence. And the public should be mad. There’s no excuse for this,” Rep. King said.

“We’re talking about life and death here. This guy could have been a terrorist, could have been, God knows what he could’ve been, so if he’s testing the system, he certainly found out a lot here.”

Also at JFK: Turtles Snarl Takeoff… And Then Take To Twitter

The security breach wasn’t noticed until the Virgin American flight was off the ground.

Flight attendants realized Noibi was sitting in a seat that should have been vacant and after checking the name on his boarding pass they found it didn’t match his ID. Investigators said the boarding pass belonged to a man who said it went missing from his pocket on his way to the airport on June 23.

In a statement the airline said it “…at no time felt there was any threat to the security of the flight. The airline self-reported this incident to the authorities as soon as the issue was identified onboard.”

“It’s really bad. It’s really dangerous for everybody,” traveler Andrea Benavides said.

The FBI said Noibi stayed in L.A. for four days and then tried to pull the same stunt on a Delta flight to Atlanta, again, with no valid ID or boarding pass. But security officers caught him with 10 expired boarding passes in his possession and he was taken into custody. He was charged with being a stowaway, but not under any terror or security laws. He faces a federal court hearing Saturday.

“Let’s find out where the mistake came from and let’s fix it,” Scarsdale resident Chris Peckett.

WCBS 880′s Peter Haskell: They Used To Check IDs At The Gate

The TSA confirmed Noibi was screened by its agents, but would not comment further on the ongoing investigation.

“Every passenger that passes through security checkpoints is subject to many layers of security including thorough physical screening at the checkpoint,” TSA spokesman Greg Soule said. “TSA’s review of this matter indicates that the passenger went through screening.”

What do you think of this security breach? Is enough being done to keep the skies safe? Sound off in our comments section.

chris Brown

They were too busy molesing innocent white people.
ben

Luckily for him ID is not required when flying, just got busted for the expired boarding pass.
Dave

You WOULD say “brown”….and I suppose you never heard of the “underwear bomber.” He IS black (not brown, there’s now race called brown) and he IS Nigerian. My point is, do not say ‘brown’ people “are not the terrorist” when many African countries have Muslim extremists. Of course, you don’t have to be Muslim to be a terrorist, and not necessarily of an specific color…but TSA is too concerned with the political correctness and profile sensitivity of the very own profile that fits the majority of terrorists. I mean, to target an old lady and search her diapers is not only absurd, but asinine.

If we have to read more of your ignorance and your foul spelling, we’re doomed. If you want to sound smart, at least spell check and use appropriate punctuation.

jimmyd

Did you even proof read what you typed?

Anon

Obama’s liberal fascist TSA racists in their finest hour!

Michael H.

You can thank a Republican President and Congress for the TSA. Obama just inherited it.

Mikey

B.HO just inherited it? So he and his appointee, Janet Incompitano, have nothing to do with how it is run? He has no authority over it at all? Really?
Retired SOF guy

You’re right, but it’s his now. Now the current financial mess (devalued dollar, debt crisis, uncontrolled gov spending at record levels), that is squarely on BHO. Don’t blather about the housing crisis, created by CRA and dems wanting poor minorities who couldn’t afford a house to have one on the backs of the working, as being Bush’s. Then you’d just look like an idiot. Bush wasn’t perfect, but he did love this country. BHO doesn’t (try Roots of Obama’s Rage for some timely holiday reading).
Zentura

So you’re basically acknowledging we have a do-nothing President that cannot handle things that are under his watch now. I strongly agree!

jimmyd

You mean Bush’s

Zentura

Bush isn’t president any more. Obama has show ZERO LEADERSHIP on this issue. His silence is disgusting!

Dave

You WOULD say “brown”….and I suppose you never heard of the “underwear bomber.” He IS black (not brown, there’s now race called brown) and he IS Nigerian. My point is, do not say ‘brown’ people “are not the terrorist” when many African countries have Muslim extremists. Of course, you don’t have to be Muslim to be a terrorist, and not necessarily of an specific color…but TSA is too concerned with the political correctness and profile sensitivity of the very own profile that fits the majority of terrorists. I mean, to target an old lady and search her diapers is not only absurd, but asinine.

If we have to read more of your ignorance and your foul spelling, we’re doomed. If you want to sound smart, at least spell check and use appropriate punctuation.

Keir

It doesn’t appear that people responding to this article remember the last time a Nigerian was arrested for trying to cause an explosion on a Northwestern Airlines plane back in 2009. Nigeria itself is divided between Muslims and Christians and one of my students came from a town, Jos, where the inhabitants had been massacred with machetes. But you have a problem with this article mentioning the country of origin, and would confuse this country with a European state? Hate to break it to you guys, but Europe thinks the United States is backward and reactionary…

Big T Machine

95 year old American terminal cancer patient gets her adult diaper checked for C4 ,but a foreign national without ID or a valid ticket gets to fly the fieindly skies? They say the TSA does not profile ,but it sounds like they do to me. The government wants to make travel so onerous that we change our behavior patterns.
TJ

Hard to believe he outsmarted the perverted, dimwitted TSA zombies lead by the very picture of professional incompetence Janet Napolitano.
jabusse

Bet they got his snow globe!
nyc

PRIVATIZE airport security ! I have experienced TSA employees that are way overweight and just not qualified or trained well enough for security ! Too many special interests groups and unions not doing the right thing !
Ragnar

he was never screened well because that would have been racist and the TSA doesn’t want that to deal with. if he was an old white man, for sure he would have been screened enough to catch his scam. even better if he had a colostomy bag or was in a wheelchair….or was even a small child……the T&A agents love to get their hands on those folks!
Dependz

To bad he wasn’t wearing a diaper, the TSA would have caught him for sure if he had.
Jimmy Jones

And how many Europeans have done this? Take your meds asshat.

Anon

None have that I know if. And when the media comments on Europeans, it almost always mentions their specific nationality.

America still rules

Too busy sticking there paws down the underwear of 6 year old golden haired children and cavity searching little old ladies apparently.
jerrykregle

I think this bum is testing the waters so people BE VIGILANT

scy

er… Okey-dokey! Derpa-derp.
OH

I think you’re right

Mike

Make sure and check grandmas’ diaper though!

Mikey

Search granny’s diaper, but let the foreign nationals pass…and don’t hold them at arrival, either.

PROFILING IS GOOD! It shows you’ve learned from past experience. Feeling up granny, the 2 year old, and the nun is criminal.
phays

It seems we can add kids under8 yrs old to your grandma list .These two age groups are responsible for how many terrorist attacks?
tom h

EXACTLY – and by the way let us NEVER profile! It would make way too much sense!
Marcel

This is not TSA stupidity or incompetence but their agenda of targeting law abiding non Muslim white American citizens. The Gestapo in training always give the real terrorists a pass as we saw with the last Christmas day Nigerian Muslim over Detroit who was stopped by a dutchman and not TSA !
yan

If your IQ is below 100, the TSA wants you………
Sherry L. Pitts

The low life TSA agents are too busy pulling adult diapers off of 95 year old women and diapers off of babies, removing prothesis from amputees, harassing women who have had breast cancer, causing urine bags to leak and embarrass men who have them, scaring toddlers to death and sending pretty women through the nude screening machines to notice a non-citizen with no ID, no legal boarding pass and no ticket. URRGGG As an ex airline employees for over 20 years who has worked every aspect of the airport I keep telling people that the intrusive searches are so totally out of line not to mention illegal and they are just used to keep people under Obama’s dictator thumb. When will they wake up? BTW Take time to check out TSA’s hiring ‘standards’.
Nico

Meanwhile, grandma’s diaper gets examined.
Dieter

Goes to show you, no matter how tight security is, if there is a will, there is a way being detected. These check points should be outside the airport, and at a different location. Once screened, then board transportation to the airport. This would eliminate any chance of creating an incident….
Jim

Whenever this nation comes to its senses, perhaps we’ll see the end of Napolitano’s Gestapo…
My 5 year old niece, visiting from Norway, was bodily groped and sent screaming in protest through a rotating scanner…she will now never forget this…
Enough…
We are being abused, while children and the aged are being violated.
Jim…
Ron

Yes, if he was a 7 year old or a 95 yeas old then he would have gotten through. The TSA is a band of buffoons ran by a criminally insane he she.
Bill Galluccio

Let’s fire every TSA agent and replace them with trained behavioral profilers. Let them use their training to decide who needs to be given extra screening.
nairts

TSA missed checking the Boarding Pass? Are you kidding me! Oh Yea! I forgot. They were busy checking the innocent grandma’s cavity, because some terrorist stuck a dynamite stick up his alley from Amsterdam two years ago in December, now all americans have to open their cavitiies so they can do a TSA (Teasing Sexual Areas) on us. Where are we heading as a Nation. God Save the USA>
burlysoldier

Mall rent a cops are better security than these ghetto hood rats.
Brenda Acosta

It’s so outrageous! I have been stopped “randomly” at least 5 times in the last few months. I had to wait for a female TSA for a while and they let me go after wiping my hands. This man gets in with out any problems. Something is really WRONG here.
Fred Wings

Congressman Peter King spent too much time worrying about radical Islam, maybe he should check the problems that are easily fixable!
Brian

When I took my kids to the Houston International Airport last Tuesday, 28 June, I saw the very same incident happen. A TSA agent walked a black man up to the Continental ticket counter, and asked the airline lady if he could issue another boarding pass to the gentlemen for LAX, because he lost his – along with his passport. The lady asked if he had any ID, and he said he did not. Guess what! She issued him a boarding pass with the TSA Agent right there!!!! I could not believe it.

glenp

these will be the same a holes in charge of RATIONING out your BRAIN SURGERY
John

Nice!!! Lets keep searching young girls and the diapers of 95 year old women!!! Nice job TSA
glenp

THEY DIDN’T PAT HIS GENITALS OR GIVE HIM AN ANAL PROBE IS WHY!!!!
Lawrence

Obama administration is setting USA up for a big disaster folks. When it happens take your anger out on liberals democrats and idiots that voted him in.

Liberalssuck

Careful what you wish for. Sometimes they come true and not exactly the way you envisioned.
Sick of Libs

Give me your address and we will see who does the crying. Like all liberals you do nothing but talk trash and try to intimidate people. You people make me sick. You hate this country so much then get out. Tired of you and your kind trying to turn this country into Europe. You idiots need to look and see how well thats working over there. Morons.

Keir

Morons are people who have never left their small town except to get vaccinated in the big city, let alone set foot in another country, and then propound on lecturing the rest about his views of others. What part of ‘Europe’ do you hate so much? England? Greece? Czech Republic? Germany? Austria? I can’t think of any that have higher crime rates, lower education standards and incompetent politicians as the US.
http://www.tracesofevil.com

yzhenry

You are right, had that guy been wearing DEPENDS, he would have been caught for sure.

pauly

Just like Bush did ?

Wayne

9-11 was a result of failed Clinton action. It is like dealing with any bully. A lack of action creates a larger reaction. If Clinton had been hard on terrorists, gone after Bin Laden when he had a chance or even pursued the original Trade Center bombers, 9-11 would have never happened.

I do like your attempted liberal quote, “It was BUSH!!”
Michael H.

Wayne, the original WTC bombers from ’93 were tried and convicted.

Clinton would have gladly gone after more terrorists, but he was too busy being impeached.
Zentura

So your defense of Obama is that he’s just like Bush?!?!? In that you are correct! But if you hated it when Bush did it, why don’t you hate it now?? Most of the policies that liberals hated under Bush have been continued by Obama without a peep from the left. I hated the TSA under both administrations (and I wanted a Bush fan) but you liberals make me sick with your hypocrisy!

pauly

I am not a liberal, I am an American that has voted for Repubs and Dems but then realize that I am just middle class and neither of them care about me. So give yourself labels and call what you want but what do you have to show for it. Bottom line if you are not rich the only thing they want from you is your vote.
jimmyd

Poor wayne you’re another failed republirat let me guess you put your hand over your ears when somone told you that your Bush mesiah failed to keep us safe on 9/11 and that it was his fault we were attacked.

http://washingtonnearsider.wordpress.com Washington Nearsider

Oh, thank GOD we’re patting down six year-olds and taking Depends off of old women.

TSA has never prevented a single terrorist attack. They never will.
Peter

…well Mike, I ALSO wondered why his National Origin was mentioned, it seems as you pointed out, it was obviously an attempt to slant the readers opinion without any supporting facts.

Why the reference to a passport? Is a passport now required to travel between JFK / LAX?

Anyway, how many OTHER frequent flights had he taken prior to being caught? I’m sure the Gate agent won’t just OVERIDE the “BEEP” next time.
Free travel, not bad, not bad.

Jimmy Jones

Pete, he was a foreign national not a US citizen.
Reader

You both are wrong, its called reporting. Read any news story and if the person is from the US they will tell you which state. It is part of reporting the facts, something that is not done enough. Quit taking factual statements and applying your own slant becasue it is not the intention of the article. And the comment on the passport, really? Use some common sense. Earlier in the article it says he used expired ID, he is from Nigeria, so… the only form of ID that would be accepted is a passport. Get educated and learn to read all the facts in a story before slanting everything yourself.
Bobbyv33

Yes, as a foreign national a passport IS required to board a plane from JFK to LAX. A nigerian drivers license is not a valid ID. The only international valid picture ID is a passport, unless he has a green card or something else issued by the Federal Government of the USA.
I need valid ID, you need valid ID and so does he.

keldrick

This wouldn’t have happened if he was white!

Rhett

Right!

That DEPENDZ

Make sure he is in a wheel chair and has a diaper on, that way he always will be checked thoroughl, and against his will.
joe

The TSA is to busy sticking there hands all over peoples bodys that they did not notice him.
What you’re all thinking

Good thing this man was stopped by attentative and thorough checks by the TSA before he boarded the plane! Oh wait, he wasn’t…

Meanwhile the government wonders why we’re $14 trillion in debt and unable to win the war on terror.

Bill

TSA folks were too busy groping 95-year-old women and little children. No reason to thoroughly check a foreign male with no ticket. Now, if he had been a good-looking, well-endowed female…
Kim Baliey

Obama is flooding the country with Africans. He is couunting on them for his re-election.
The Nigerian wanted to go to Hawaii where ALL Africans get fake US birth Certificates just like Obama.
Hawaii is a crooked state, a sham!
TheBeatGoesON

C’mon people, let’s be fair. The TSA and other “authorities” had too much on their professional plates yesterday at JFK. Don’t you read the news?! There was an attack on the airport as hundreds of turtles wandered onto the tarmac and they not only had to gather them up but screen each and every one of them to protect the Homeland. Now ask yourself, would you want THAT job? To have to grope a reptile with a protective coating. The answer is NO! As is in evidence by the lack of scrutiny of hajib or burkah wearing “visitors”.

TheBeatGoesON

C’mon people, let’s be fair. The TSA and other “authorities” had too much on their professional plates yesterday at JFK. Don’t you read the news?! There was an attack on the airport as hundreds of turtles wandered onto the tarmac and they not only had to gather them up but screen each and every one of them to protect the Homeland. Now ask yourself, would you want THAT job? To have to grope a reptile with a protective coating. The answer is NO! As is in evidence by the lack of scrutiny of hajib or burkah wearing “visitors”.
Well, my bad! NOT yesterday, a week ago.I thought I had a good reason for the gaffe. Nope! It’s just one of those “other” reasons the system didn’t work.
Oh well. Next! Step over here sir. You set off the bells & buzzers. Now roll up your sleeve and bend over. Need gloves over here…supervisor!

Geof Fowler

Last weekend I traveled from Bradley and went through one of the new body scanners. It picked up on my wallet in my right rear pocket, which required the wallet be taken back to the x-ray machine and scanned. Amazingly dangerous thing those leather contraptions containing money and plastic. Afterwards, I felt sooo protected. When I returned through Chicago, TSA there was fine with my wallet in my pocket. Gotta love that consistency.
jimmyd

were not suppose to win the war
kerpow

Why would they want to win the war on terror when its such a profitable enterprise?

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Authorities Investigate Security Breach At JFK After Man Flies To L.A. Without Ticket Or ID

Nigerian National Allegedly Used Univ. Of Michigan ID & Expired Boarding Pass

June 30, 2011 11:14 PM

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