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A federal investigation is underway into how a Garland man slipped passed D/FW Airport security and boarded a plane without a ticket or ID.
We've been here at this man's apartment in hopes of asking him that question ourselves but so far no luck.
But as you mentioned members of congress - especially those from from texas - had a lot of questions today for the new head of tsa ....about how such a major lapse in security could happen at one of the nation's busiest airports.
Vice Admiral Peter Neffenger was in the hot seat during Wednesday’s Homeland Security committee meeting.
One of his first orders of business was getting to the bottom of how 25-year-old Damarias Cockerham of Garland was not only able to leave his car unattended curbside at Terminal D Sunday afternoon, but got past a TSA checkpoint and ran on board an American Airlines flight bound for Guatemala City -- all without a plane ticket or identification.
“Myself being from Texas, we would like a report from the TSA on this incident,” said Congressman Michael McCaul. “It's very disturbing. I don't know how he got past security completely untouched.”
According to the police report from Cockerham's arrest, when asked how he got through, he simply said, "I walked.”
“According to the police report, it was only after the police were called and the individual left the plane that TSA security became aware of the incident,” said Congressman John Ratcliffe.
Ratcliffe, whose district includes Rockwall, also asked if Neffenger thought the root of the security breech was specific to D/FW.
“Office of investigations is looking at that right now,” said Neffenger. “I'll let you know what specifically was the issue here. My suspicion is that right now, it's confined to that specific location in Dallas-Fort Worth.”
The police report says two airport cameras captured the incident, so TSA should have a good idea of how Cockerham slipped by. They're not releasing that video.
Neffenger says one thing TSA will look at is checkpoint barriers, especially those near security stations that are less trafficked.
“The bottom line is, it should not be easy,” said Neffenger. “It should be impossible for someone to make their way past a checkpoint without being observed, and certainly should not be possible to get past a checkpoint to the point of getting on an aircraft without having known about it. So we'll find out what happened there.”
FOX 4 went to Cockerham’s apartment on Wednesday in hopes of talking with him, but so far, no luck.