Acting TSA chief ousted after security test failures

Acting Administrator Melvin Carraway has been removed from office after a report found Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents failed to find fake explosives and weapons in internal tests at almost all of America’s busiest airports. 

The report found airport security employees failed 67 of 70 internal tests, where undercover agents tried to pass through security while carrying fake prohibited items. 

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Carraway, who has been leading the TSA since the beginning of the year, is being reassigned to serve in another area of the DHS.

{mosads}“Effective immediately, Melvin Carraway, the Acting Administrator for the Transportation Security Administration, will be reassigned to serve in the Office of State and Local Law Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters,” Johnson said in a statement. “Acting Deputy Director, Mark Hatfield will lead TSA until a new Acting Administrator is appointed. I thank Melvin Carraway for his eleven years of service to TSA and his 36 years of public service to this nation.” 

Carraway had been filling in at the TSA since the agency’s long-term administrator, John Pistole, retired at the end of 2014. 

President Obama nominated Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Neffenger to lead the TSA in April, but the pick has not yet been approved by the Senate. 

Members of Congress had previously criticized the president for not appointing a leader more quickly. 

Johnson urged the Senate to confirm Neffenger’s nomination “as quickly as possible.”