In one of the most damaging reports ever filed about the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), ABC news headlined yesterday with "9/11 Redoux:'Thousands of Aliens' in U.S. Flight Schools Illegally." The article paints a pathetic portrait of the TSA in a free-fall, unable to handle the most basic of its Constitutionally-mandated jobs.

If you thought news of bombs getting on planes, or a mass-exodus of 67,000 screeners leaving their jobs was indicative of a failing agency, how about TSA allowing 8,000 foreign pilots to train without background checks required by federal law?

In an internal TSA memo obtained by ABC, Assistant Federal Security Director Richard A. Horn called the situation "urgent" and likened it to the run up to 9/11. 

"Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9-11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," wrote one regional security official to his boss at the TSA.

ABC provides documents which show that since 2005, TSA has been made aware that thousands and thousands of foreign student pilots have been training illegally in American flight schools. FAA inspectors have been trying to get TSA to correct the dire situation but TSA continues to turn a blind eye to the problem. 

No one at DHS or TSA would comment for the story and instead told ABC they were preparing an official response. ABC broadcast a television version of the story last night during "World News With Charles Gibson."  

(Photo: 9/11 Hijacker Pilot Hani Hanjour's 1999 FAA Pilot License. In 2001, managers at an Arizona flight school reported Hanjour to the FAA at least five times)

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