Security staff at US airports miss 24% of fake weapons in tests

Security staff at some of America's leading airports failed to detect fake weapons including bombs, guns and dynamite in 24 per cent of undercover tests by government officials.

At some airports, screeners let through more than 50 per cent of the weapons.

Security at airports across the United States has supposedly been increased since the attacks of 11 September. Passengers and their hand luggage are routinely searched by staff before they board.

But with public anxiety already high amid warnings of possible further attacks on or around this week's 4 July holiday, the revelations will do little to assuage the fears of passengers.

At Los Angeles international airport, there was a 41 per cent failure rate. Jack Plaxe, an aviation security consultant, described the result as "just pathetic", adding: "There has to be problems with the people or their training."

The 387 tests – the unpublished results of which were revealed by USA Today – were run last month at 32 different airports by undercover officials from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which began overseeing airport screening in February.

The agents were instructed to do as little as possible to conceal the fake weapons contained in their luggage.

The baggage screeners who were tested work for, and were trained by, the commercial security companies that used to work for the airlines and are now being supervised by the TSA. The organisation is in the process of hiring the screeners, of which there are about 45,000 across the country, to serve in its new federal airport security force, which will cover about 400 airports. The transfer of all staff is intended to be completed by 19 November.

The tests showed that the least secure airports appeared to be in Cincinnati, Ohio; Jacksonville, Florida; and Las Vegas, Nevada, where more than half of the fake metallic weapons concealed in the agents' luggage went undetected. In similar tests earlier this year before the federal takeover, investigators found failure rates of nearly 50 per cent at 32 airports.

A TSA spokeswoman said: "The TSA is looking for problems in the system daily so we can fix them. We have issues to correct."