| Security breaches at passenger screening checkpoints continue to occur at U.S. commercial airports. Assessments of a 10 year period since 9/11 indicated more than 25,000 breaches in which individuals gained unauthorized access to sterile and secured areas of an airport due to vulnerabilities within the screening and inspection process. Technical and social factors must be measured against environmental changes that affect the level of this system's reliability. The research questions examined airport security breaches since 9/11, the time of day in which airport security breaches were more prevalent, and supervision during passenger screening operations. The purpose of this sequential mixed methods study was to examine the effectiveness of airport security screening in the post 9/11 era. Guided by Reason's swiss cheese model, Weick and Roberts' high reliability organization theory, and Adams's equity theory, an independent t test and logistical regression analysis was conducted to explore and analyze TSA incident reports to determine the accuracy and causation of security breaches reported since 9/11. The results of this study indicated a significantly low average of annual airport security breaches reported by the TSA. One key finding involved training and suggests uniformity in the way that training is administered and evaluated. Another key finding involved the tracking of security breaches and suggests better incident reporting tools to accurately record security breaches. The results of this study can be used by the TSA in the development of better cost-benefit metrics (e.g., training, staffing, and policy and procedures) to deploy at each U.S. commercial airport. The implications for positive social change are the increased integrity of the passenger security screening process and reduction of potential acts of terrorism against commercial aircraft. |
