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A team of security experts that conducted tests at major airports across the United States and abroad was "grossly mismanaged" and resulted in a "substantial and specific danger to public safety," the Office of Special Counsel informed President Bush and Congress Tuesday in a letter.

Bogdan Dzakovic, a former special agent with the Federal Aviation Administration's "Red Team," a group of specialists who visited airports looking for vulnerabilities in security systems, accused FAA officials of deliberately hiding team findings that would make the airline industry look bad. According to Dzakovic, who now works at the Transportation Security Administration, the officials in the FAA's Civil Aviation Security division had abused their authority and posed a threat to public safety.

In February 2002, OSC Special Counsel Elaine Kaplan decided that Dzakovic's allegations warranted further investigation. She sent his disclosures to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and instructed him to follow up on the case.

In response, Mineta ordered Transportation's inspector general to investigate. After looking over the IG's Aug. 18, 2002 report, Kaplan wrote a letter on March 18 to Bush and lawmakers, explaining that the IG office was not able to confirm Dzakovic's complaint that FAA officials had purposely hidden Red Team findings for the airline industry's benefit.

But the IG report substantiated the "crux" of Dzakovic's allegations, Kaplan wrote, confirming that the FAA mismanaged the team and created a safety threat. The team consistently reported vulnerabilities in security systems, but its testing "generally did not have the desired effect of creating sustained improved performance by airport screening companies," even after Sept. 11, 2001, the IG report found. Also, FAA officials in the Civil Aviation Security division had failed to establish procedures to fix security lapses pointed out by the Red Team.

James Loy, the Transportation undersecretary for security at the time the IG's report was released, told Kaplan that TSA would take steps to correct the security lapses that the Red Team had identified. But in her March 18 letter, Kaplan said she was concerned that Loy had not told her about any steps taken to remove the officials who mismanaged the Red Team from air security positions.

Kaplan encouraged Bush and lawmakers to "continue to take advantage of [Dzakovic's] expertise and insight into aviation security matters, as [they] consider the import of the findings of this investigation."

Office of Special Counsel investigation, March 18, 2003

Nuts and Bolts

An investigation substantiated a whistleblower's allegations that inexperienced welders made mistakes while working on the hydraulic systems that power critical parts of four U.S. aircraft carriers, two of which are currently in the Persian Gulf, the Office of Special Counsel announced recently.

Navy repair crews fixed all of the welding problems by December, but the mistakes should not have happened in the first place, because the team doing the welding was not qualified to work on the carriers, according to the OSC.

The North Island Depot Voyage Repair Team at the Naval Air Depot in North Island, Calif., performed improper welds on the USS Constellation and USS Abraham Lincoln, now participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the USS Nimitz and USS John C. Stennis, according to whistleblower Kristin Shott.

Shott, who has more than 12 years of welding experience, told OSC that the North Island welders were not qualified to work on the aircraft carriers. The welds they performed could cause problems with the carriers' hydraulic systems that power control devices and motors used in launch and recovery systems. She claimed that the welds by the North Island team violated military welding standards and posed a danger to the carriers.

A subsequent investigation by the Navy's inspector general, ordered by OSC's Kaplan, revealed "serious shortcomings in the quality assurance program at the Naval Air Depot." The welders working on the carries did not have the proper certification, the report said.

When senior managers at the North Island Navy Air Depot saw the results of the investigation in February 2002, they suspended all shipboard welding and testing at the base until they had a chance to send the welding team for training. The Navy also repaired the carriers with faulty welds.

Kaplan sent the results of the IG's investigation to President Bush and Congress on March 13. In a letter, she said she is concerned that the Navy did not take severe enough disciplinary action against the managers responsible for allowing the inexperienced welding team to work on the ships.

Office of Special Counsel investigation, March 13, 2003

COMMENTS

• Though there were extreme breakdowns in FAA/Airport security as to have allowed any version of September 11, 2001 to have occurred; it was much more than FAA's responsibility to prevent this. I believe it was more than the "intelligence failures" pinned on the FBI and CIA for not connecting the dots. As a federal employee, I'm offended by the scapegoating of the federal agencies that has been going on since September 11, 2001. What I've never seen or heard in this country is what, why, how could this administration have received warnings of immiment attack and not increased awareness/readiness? Why wasn't there a commission established immediately afterwards to look at everything? Why were there impediments to even having a commission? Some of the things I think need to be answered include: Where was the Air Force during the time of the initial hijackings? Why weren't standard procedures followed? Where was NORAD, as they track our airspace as much as the FAA? Why does there seem to be critical articles coming out against various agencies and departments, but there isn't a single comprehensive, nonpartisan, no-holds-bar breakdown of all? Barbara Sordahl Posted April 4, 2003 4:08 PM