'You're at war': I went inside the new TSA Academy, where officers learn to detect bombs, spot weapons, and find out why failure isn't an option

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

A woman in navy cargo pants approaches the walk-through metal detector ahead of me. As she tries to covertly slip a switchblade knife into one of her many pants pockets, she fumbles, and the knife drops to the floor.

Only I and one other person see this, and after picking up the knife, she grins at us and places a finger to her lips.

"Shh," she whispers, before successfully slipping the knife into her pocket.

I say nothing and watch anxiously as she approaches the metal detector, hopeful that the officer manning the machine catches her. Alarms sound and the resulting pat down reveals that her pockets are full of knives.

If we were in a major American airport, this officer would have just saved the day.

This scene didn't play out in an airport, however, and I wasn't complicit in any crime. I was observing the mock checkpoint training that all new transportation-security officers, or TSOs, must complete at the TSA Academy, which was created this year.

The mock checkpoint training is just one piece of the US Transportation Safety Administration's newest strategy to help TSOs complete their mission.

Protecting America's skies

What is TSA's mission? Academy students should know — they recite it every morning before classes begin: "To protect the nation's transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce."

Last summer, TSA was failing this mission.

During a number of covert audits on passenger and baggage-screening operations, airport TSA screeners failed to detect banned weapons in 67 of 70 tests at dozens of airport checkpoints around the country. John Roth, inspector general of the US Department of Homeland Security, described these findings as "troubling and disappointing" and called for a major overhaul of how TSA operates.

The DHS responded by bringing in Peter Neffenger as the new TSA administrator, and he soon set about improving the training for TSA's frontline officers, among other things.

In January 2016, the TSA began sending its newly hired officers from airports around the country to a consolidated basic training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, where students collectively learn about TSA's mission and operations as a counterterrorism organization.

"Training is the foundation of mission success and a powerful tool in galvanizing and leading change," Neffenger said during a speech at the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan forum and think tank in Washington, DC, in July. "It provides consistency, develops a common culture, instills core values, improves morale, and it raises performance."

And it couldn't have come at a better time for the agency.

TSA ramped up its hiring efforts this year in response to reports of long lines wrapping around the nation's busiest airports, wait times of sometimes more than an hour, and hundreds of stranded passengers. Now the 5,400 new hires who are expected to have completed their training between January and September 2016 get the same standard of training.

The program, which costs the federal government $2,400 a student when factoring in travel and lodging, lasts nine days. Students hired to work in various airports across the country live together on the center's campus in dormitories and must abide by certain rules, like quiet hours after 10 p.m.

Eight classes begin each start week, and each class has 24 students and three instructors. To graduate, students must receive passing grades on an image-interpretation test and a job-knowledge test. After graduation, they may begin new hire on-the-job training at their home airports. TSA estimates that about 4,500 TSOs have gone through the academy so far.

"We're actually noticing that in airports that have had many people come to our training, the culture changes," says Jason Pockett, an instructor who moved from Orange County, California, last year to join the TSA Academy team in Georgia. "It's getting a more positive spin out there. People are starting to follow the procedures and do the things that they're being trained to do here on a more consistent basis."

Before the TSA Academy, TSO training was delivered locally at airports.

"The training was a little bit different because, yes, we had classrooms and we had our computers, but we never had a place where we could truly practice and truly get the hands-on experience," Pockett says.

"It was more, 'Here's the lesson, let's just talk about it for a while, maybe pat down each other or do a bag check real quick in the classroom,' and then it was, 'Go out to the floor, work with the lab passengers, and just try to figure it out while you're out there,'" he says.

With the newly consolidated training, Pockett says that students can hit the ground running with a much deeper understanding of the job.

"The reason we consolidated training was to get the one message across," he says. "We can ensure that everybody's pretty much in the same place, they get their one strong message, understand truly what the mission of TSA is, and ensure that everybody's getting one set of standard operating procedures, and that way we can keep that continuity once they get to the airports and have everybody screening the exact same way."

And that means they're catching more threats. Last year, the TSA found 2,653 firearms. By midway through this year, the TSA had already found 1,827 firearms.

The 'main threat'

Leaving one class about improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, after less than an hour, I feel like I've learned more about bombs than I'd ever cared to know.

The TSA considers IEDs the "main threat" and one of the most important things that officers have to find when screening passengers and baggage. IEDs are particularly scary because they're so hard to find — they could be made from some of the most common items, even toilet paper.

"An IED is limited only by the imagination of the bomber and the materials readily at hand," Bill Morgan, an explosives specialist and TSA Academy instructor, tells the class.

And thanks to the internet, which is full of "how to" articles about bomb-making, terrorists don't even need to have an imagination anymore.

"Not only are IEDs constantly evolving, but the enemy is constantly looking to attack us," he adds.

When you put it like that, it must be overwhelming for TSOs to think about just how important and challenging their job is. Loading these trainees' brains full of information about recognizing explosives and initiators may seem like a lot to handle, but Morgan says that preparation is crucial in making TSOs comfortable about doing their jobs. His goal is to go over the material until they're "sick of ever hearing about it."

"If an IED can look like anything and be made out of anything, how can we find it?" he asks the class. "By knowing which components we need to look for."

"Because no matter how wild they get, how imaginative, how inventive they get, it's got to have certain components. And that's what we're going to talk about today," he says.

We learn about nitroglycerin, which people with heart conditions can take to widen their blood vessels and treat symptoms like chest pain. It's also the first modern high explosive, which was discovered by Alfred Nobel. And it was used in the Bojinka plot, a failed plan in 1995 to blow up 11 airliners, potentially killing thousands of passengers and shutting down air travel around the world.

Terrorists planned to put nitroglycerin in its liquid form in contact-lens-solution containers, carry them on board, leave them under seats, and get off the planes before detonation.