A pilot's laptop, filled with top secret security information was reported missing at Dulles Airport and the ripple effects were felt across the country.
The Mesa Airlines employee couldn't find the personal laptop he brought with him while co-piloting a United Express flight from Birmingham, Alabama to Dulles International Airport (web|news) .
17 airports were forced to make emergency changes to access codes at Dulles, Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago's O'Hare and San Antonio.
Various officials within the airline industry admit that with these access codes, someone who went though security could, with the touch of a few buttons, get onto a plane or get outside, right below a plane.
A TSA spokesperson said, "On April 17, Mesa Airlines notified TSA that an employee reported a laptop, containing confidential information, had been misplaced, lost or stolen."
Federal and airline officials admitted that the classified codes on the computer provided the pilot, through a keypad, access from the gate to the plane and down to ground level right below the plane.
Passengers were appalled. "That's just a major security breach for everyone that flies within the United States."
One airline insider tells ABC 7 News the laptop was probably stored in an overhead compartment used by passengers and likely stolen.
Federal officials quickly contacted 17 U.S. airports used by the pilot, warning them of the security breach. Media representatives for a number of those airports affected, including Dulles, Phoenix and Akron-Canton said the codes were promptly changed. ABC 7 News learned one security official at a midwest airport rushed to work in the middle of the night to prevent a breach.
A Mesa Airlines spokesperson said, "Any breach of aviation security is of primary concern to Mesa Airlines and we are fully cooperating with the TSA."
Meanwhile, a TSA official said the agency, "may look at increasing the standards for anyone who stores this type of information on their computers."
Airline officials said they have very little to go on because they don't know if the pilot was targeted or if it was a crime of opportunity. A spokesperson for Dulles said airport police are investigating.
No thinking American believes airport security is preventing terrorist plots. Thousands of people have relatively unfettered access to secured areas at each airport with scheduled air flights. The number of vehicles, cargo, containers, people, and baggage that routinely pass through security checkpoints, protected by that crack squad of TSA employees is all the indication you need to know the real security occurs elsewhere, in the unreported shadows of counter terrorism, and like it or not, by killing bad guys in the Middle East.
The reason we have TSA and the stocking-foot security shuffle is because people who don't think get to vote, too.
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