A series of security flaws last month at the Maryland military installation where Air Force One is based allowed an intruder to roam “ unencumbered ” for more than five hours and board a plane designated for senior government leaders, the internal watchdog said of the Air Force in a report Thursday. .
The man, previously identified as 36-year-old Joseph Armstrong, was able to access the premises on Feb. 4 when an on-duty guard failed to properly check his credentials before entering him, the Air Force Office of the Inspector General said in its report. He later passed the flight line and boarded the C-40 aircraft used to carry VIP passengers.
“There were three layers of failures,” Air Force IG Lt. Gen. Sami Said told reporters on Thursday. “The first, which should have prevented this ball from rolling at all, is of course the fence [where] we had a pilot from the security forces. They were distracted and did not follow a procedure. “
The gatekeeper, who was “fully qualified and trained” to work at the base access points, failed to correctly identify Armstrong, who was not mentioned in the report but described as a homeless man with an arrest report.
The gatekeeper, who was also not named by name, later told investigators that he was distracted that morning by a personal problem.
After gaining access to the base, Armstrong reportedly wandered “unencumbered” and visited the facility’s food court and passenger lounge. He “stumbled around for a while,” before gaining access to the flight line through a faulty automatic gate that was not properly closed, Said told reporters.
Once in the flight line, soldiers posted there “did not see the man walking to the plane” and those who saw him on the plane “did not question his presence,” a summary of the report said.
Armstrong was able to board the plane because it was open to flight crew training, the report said.
Two crew members training on the plane saw him boarding and exiting the plane a few minutes later. He was picked up by personnel of the 316th Security Forces Squadron after someone in the passenger terminal warned them. Armstrong was arrested for unauthorized access to the flight line and turned over to local authorities.
He was booked by the US Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, given a federal subpoena for infringement, and turned over to local Virginia law enforcement because he had two outstanding warrants.
When asked why he was on the base, “his answer was, ‘I just wanted to see planes,'” said Said, who noted that the man also said he had been drinking alcohol before gaining access to the facility.
Said said the security personnel who failed to notice or challenge the intruder did not take any disciplinary action, even though his order gave the guard at the gate a non-judicial punishment.
After the incident, Andrews Joint Base tightened security, with new measures, including adding more security patrols.
The report found that there were no basic systemic security vulnerabilities.