American Airlines passenger clears security, boards plane with wrong boarding pass

An American Airlines passenger at DFW Airport managed to pass through three layers of security checks and boarded her plane with the wrong boarding pass.

LaShonda Traylor said she had no idea she had someone else's boarding pass until she looked for her seat assignment on the plane.

Traylor boarded her flight under the name of another passenger with the last name of Taylor.

“I'm a female, he's a male, and it was just... our names are somewhat similar but they weren't similar enough to get that mixed up,” Traylor said.

The three points of failure started with an American Airlines agent who issued the wrong boarding pass. Then, the TSA didn't catch it when she went through security. Finally, the gate agent scanned the pass and the device flashed red but she was allowed to board anyway.

Aviation security consultant Chiam Koppel said the TSA officer made a mistake, but doesn't view this as a major security breach.

“Still, we have a good driver’s license with a passenger going through a checkpoint and still being screened. It means a sterile area still remained sterile and that's what we care about,” Koppel said.

But Koppel said he's glad Traylor is speaking up and giving TSA the chance to review if it needs to rotate officers more often.

Traylor said she hopes this serves as wakeup call for others who fly and those entrusted to make sure they are safe.

“I just hate to see people get in trouble. To me, maybe it won't be a reprimand, maybe it'll just be more education about risk factors and promoting safety,” Traylor said. “I'm hoping that be the outcome of it.”

American Airlines said gate agent checks the number of passengers against the manifest and the plane wouldn't have left the gate without a resolution.

TSA said it's investigating whether document verification procedures were followed at the security checkpoint in this case, but that TSA confirmed the passenger and her belongings were screened appropriately.