TSA AIRHEAD
An artful honor for hero EMT Watches at LaG as flier wanders into forbidden zone
A HAPLESS ROOKIE security guard watched an equally clueless Indian national wander into an off-limits area in LaGuardia Airport, a video obtained by the Daily News showed.
Phani Kumar Varanasi, 41, was arrested Thursday, two days after the Tuesday security breach on a charge of criminal trespass after surrendering to Port Authority cops at the Queens airport, police said.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” a relative told the Daily News. “It was a mistake. He was just going on vacation. We are in a deep soup.”
Varanasi told police he was confused about where to go after exiting the plane, after flying in from Detroit, and he strayed into a “sterile area” of the terminal through a guarded exit.
The video captured him entering the forbidden zone through its exit as the Transportation Security Administration employee sits at a desk inside Terminal B.
The incident led to a partial evacuation of the terminal while causing travel problems for hundreds of passengers as authorities conducted a security sweep.
Varanasi spent five minutes wandering around the restricted area around before returning to the public space through the same exit and walking away, according to the TSA.
Port Authority cops were finally called, but Varanasi was already gone by then.
The bungling worker was “within the one-year probation period, and appropriate action will be taken,” the TSA said in a statement on Thursday.
The agency did not go into specifics, but Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) said the TSA needs to publicly address the bizarre incident.
“We have to be constantly on our guard, and the breach at LaGuardia has to be explained and corrected,” King tweeted Thursday.
Police contacted Varanasi, who was staying at his brother’s Secaucus, N.J., home, to come in for an interview at LaGuardia.
“There was a TSA agent at that location where my client allegedly was,” defense attorney Wendy Licitra said at Varanasi’s arraignment in Queens Criminal Court Thursday. “He didn’t say anything to my client, didn’t say, ‘Go the other way.’. . . He (Varanasi) was simply looking for luggage.”
Varanasi, who was released without bail, declined comment at the urging of his lawyers.
“The media storm will die down,” one of the lawyers told Varanasi and his relatives.
Varanasi was identified through surveillance video and a list of passengers aboard the flight. He works as a general manager with Sankhya Infotech, an Indiabased manufacturer of gas and water meters.