Pilots Furious Over TSA-Damaged Airplanes

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Fourteen American Eagle aircraft were damaged overnight on Monday at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport when a TSA inspector used instrument probes as handholds to test the security of the aircraft from tampering, ABCNews reported. Over 40 flights were delayed on Tuesday while mechanics checked the airplanes. “Our inspector was following routine procedure for securing the aircraft that were on the tarmac,” TSA official Elio Montenegro told ABC. However, “There is a sign that clearly says don’t step,” Mary Frances Fagan, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, which operates American Eagle, told the Chicago Tribune. One pilot who posted on an Internet forum wrote, “The brilliant [TSA] employees used an instrument located just below the cockpit window that is critical to the operation of the onboard computers. They decided this instrument, the TAT probe, would be adequate to use as a ladder.”

TSA workers will be retrained to ensure that the problem doesn’t happen again, Montenegro said.

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