9/11 Aftermath: BWI Airport Marks 20-Year Anniversary Of TSA

BALTIMORE, MD — On Friday, officials at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport marked the 20th anniversary of the airport becoming the first in the country to launch Transportation Security Administration scrutiny after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

BWI was the first airport to launch under TSA security oversight on April 30, 2002, with a security checkpoint staffed by federal officers about six months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Guest speakers at Friday's event included TSA Administrator David Pekoske, along with current and former leaders who have overseen security operations at BWI during the last two decades.

They reflected on the changes that have taken place that have enhanced security in the airline industry to help ensure that passengers, flight crew and aircraft land safely at their destination.

From the earliest days of TSA, employees had “a sincere drive to protect the traveling public and an innovative mindset,” Pekoske told a gathering of nearly 100 individuals who attended the anniversary celebration at BWI on Friday morning.

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act became law in Nov. 2001, establishing the TSA. That fall, TSA consisted of about 100 people working at folding tables in the basement of Department of Transportation headquarters. Today, 20 years later, there are 430 federalized airports and a workforce of 60,000 employees nationwide.

The Maryland Aviation Administration and BWI partnered with the pioneers of the young TSA to be the first airport to host TSA and allow officials to test the new policies and procedures as plans for the wider federalization of airports across the country took shape.

The “TSA Start Up Team” at BWI built a “War Room” on the lower level of C Concourse and began testing new screening methods, checkpoint designs, standard operating procedures and more. The team’s main tasks were to establish the new agency and its security mission and write policies and procedures that adhered to the requirements of the law that created TSA. They were to build a fully federalized workforce of security screening officers to replace private contract screeners.

“The seeds of TSA’s accomplishments over the past 20 years were sown right here by the team at BWI,” Pekoske said. The first federal screening officers served at BWI, and the first mobile screening force officers trained at BWI before they were deployed across the country to help ensure consistent screening operations at the federalized airports that followed.

In the years since its launch, TSA said it has developed and implemented strong security procedures, built a well-trained and highly skilled professional workforce, and introduced a wide array of state-of-the-art technologies to screen passengers, baggage and cargo.