The Oakland International Airport did not break any laws or regulations when it denied 200 Marines and soldiers access to the passenger terminal during a layover last year from Iraq to the troops' home base in Hawaii, the Transportation Department says.
Calvin L. Scovell III, the department's inspector general, blamed the mix-up on security concerns and a communication failure between the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department.
The contract to allow military layovers at the California airport "did not require that military personnel have access to the airport terminal; it only required that military personnel be allowed to deplane and stretch their legs on stops lasting over one hour," said a report released yesterday to House lawmakers who requested an investigation into the matter.
The Sept. 27 layover was the last stop for fuel and food, but the troops, who were returning from a tour in Iraq, were denied access to food and bathroom facilities.
A Marine reported the incident to Rep. John L. Mica, Florida Republican and ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and said it "felt like being spit on."
Airport officials were concerned that the flight's ground staff could not provide "an adequate level of escort and control of such a large group of military personnel in or around the terminal area," the inspector's report said.
The report also said the Homeland Security and Defense departments have no coordinated policy to conduct security screenings or a communications process to allow the Marines and soldiers in passenger terminals.
The review also found "miscommunication about the proper storage and safeguarding of weapons carried on board aircraft during the layover" and that the airport "could not confirm that weapons [on the plane] would be secured and safeguarded in accordance with Department of Defense regulations and that the Marines and soldiers would leave their weapons on board."
An airport spokeswoman and a Defense Department spokesman said they received the report but were not prepared to comment until their respective officials had a chance to review the findings.
Calls for comment to the Transportation Security Administration were not returned.
The inspector general recommended the establishment of a task force with representatives from the Homeland, Defense and Transportation departments, along with representatives from the airlines and airports, to develop a uniform process for handling service members on all military chartered flights at U.S. commercial-service airports.
The lack of protocol for treating military personnel during transport is "no excuse for the poor treatment these brave men and women received in exchange for defending our freedoms," Mr. Mica said.
Mr. Mica said he and Rep. Tom Petri, Wisconsin Republican and ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on aviation, will follow up on the inspector general's report.
"The shocking thing is that there is no protocol for handling our returning troops, and at Oakland they got a very rude welcome," Mr. Mica said. "We just need to get some regular order of the process so we don't have a recurrence of what we saw happen here."
3 comments:
How is it that the FAA, Homeland and Transportation Dept. could not get this right?
The obvious "left" answer is simply not good enough for me in this case. Nothing short of eliminating those individuals who had control of airport decisions that day and belittle our troops. There is just simply no excuse!
Who in our party will start to stand tall and rule with an iron fist. Certainly not crooked arms McCain or loony religous biggot Huckabee!
It is an outrageous abomination that Bobby Sturgell and his FAA cannot even bother to coordinate with other federal agencies like the TSA and the USDOT so as to ensure: (A) that those that would harm our country do not even enter, much less be trained at and matriculate from, FAA-certified flight schools; (B) that those that would harm our country cannot in any way gain entry to, much less work for, FAA-certified aircraft repair facilities worldwide which may work on fuel-laden, passenger-filled aircraft bound for the USA, as discussed at the February 29, 2008 Senate Commerce Committee hearing at which Sturgell and USDOT head Mary Peters testified, now available on the Internet; (C) that those that would harm our country be required to spend at least more time than the perfunctory 18 seconds through the TSA cordon at Newark Liberty International Airport as passengers have recently experienced at EWR, as reported by the press this week.
Bobby Sturgell is a harmful and dangerous individual whose malice and incompetence must be summarily rejected by the further outcry of the American people. Bobby Sturgell must be ousted from office as current Acting Head of the FAA. It is abundantly clear that he is ONLY acting – and for that matter, he is a bad actor.
Moreover, Bobby Sturgell is a liar who has already perjured himself repeatedly to save his own proverbial reptilian skin, and to protect solely the interests of the monied aeromercantile complex for which Sturgell regularly shills.
Citizens in Rockland County, NY, as well as citizens in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, were mouth-agape aghast while watching the evasive and false under oath testimony and answers given by Bobby Sturgell on Thursday, February 7, 2008, to the Senate Commerce Committee. Our citizen group Quiet Rockland has thanked Congress for making the webcast testimony of Bobby Sturgell and the proceedings generally, available to all of us, real time and now archived, through RealPlayer software, on the Senate website.
Bobby Sturgell arrogantly insulted Senators Boxer, McCaskill, and Lautenberg, among all of the rest of us, with his persistent utter refusal to answer the most simple of direct Yes-or-No questions. Sturgell made Watergate conspirators sound like they testified on sodium pentothal by comparison. Senator McCaskill asked the core essential question: Do you think air traffic controller fatigue was a contributing factor[?], to runway incursion mishaps, and the slipperiest of eels, the eel of Sturgell, the Sturg-eel, sought to squirm away in the scripted slime of non answers.
Bobby Sturgell, acting FAA head for three months, testified that he had no prior knowledge of the San Diego aircraft near-miss a few weeks ago?
LIE.
Sturgell testified that he had no prior knowledge of recent Newark, NJ departures flying out in the wrong direction in the past few weeks?
LIE.
The nomination of Bobby Sturgell as proposed FAA Administrator should not be confirmed. Instead, after he first personally apologizes to Senators Boxer, McCaskill, and Lautenberg, Bobby Sturgell should then be INDICTED - for contempt of Congress, for rendering perjured testimony under oath, and for already putting millions of otherwise innocent and unsuspecting Americans directly at risk and in the way of harm. Quiet Rockland has now faxed every Senator on the Commerce Committee, asking them to please refer this matter to the AG, IG, GAO, and a Special Prosecutor, and to please now cook this eel.
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Looks as if we have a liberal bomb thrower among us. This might get fun!!
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