On Nov. 1, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local Dallas fire rescue personnel were dispatched to Dallas Love Field (DAL) after a small public charter flight operated by JSX landed on runway 13L and unexpectedly rolled into the grass. The incident shut down one of two runways for multiple hours at an airport that supports about 18 million passengers per year.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the incident. No cause has been released to the public.
Small public charters like JSX operate under more permissive regulatory requirements than traditional commercial airlines, especially when it comes to security screenings for passengers. The incident at DAL is just one example of how the relative lack of scrutiny public charters face extends risk to traditional airline passengers and airline employees.
SOAA has released a report, Threats to U.S. Aviation Infrastructure, which details documented incidents that fit seven aviation threat categories in line with those identified by the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) 2026-2030 National Strategy for Transportation Security. It also outlines concerns related to transnational crime, including human trafficking, drug trafficking, and cash smuggling.
With these threats in mind, SOAA is advocating for the passage of the bipartisan Safer Skies Act of 2025 (H.R. 2353), introduced by Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY) and sponsored by 52 representatives. This legislation would ensure that “certain small public charter air carrier operations comply” with the Aircraft Operator Standard Security Program (AOSSP), the same security vetting that major commercial carriers’ passengers face.
Strong security vetting in one system may push bad actors towards a system where they face less scrutiny. Currently, passengers aboard small public charters are subjected to more limited screening based on the Twelve-Five Standard Security Program (TFSSP).
Alleviating Threats to Passengers
The TSA identifies seven key threats to American transportation infrastructure, including improvised explosive devices (IED) or mass casualty violence, standoff weapons attacks, hijacking, insider threats, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), cyberattacks, and sabotage at maintenance facilities. The increased security screenings mandated by the Safer Skies Act of 2025 would not address all seven threats, but would decrease the possibility that passengers use private charters to bypass screening and introduce violent weapons into crowded commercial airports, use airports to smuggle persons, cash, or drugs, or otherwise threaten the traveling public.
Thus far, SOAA finds that “the confirmed U.S. case record for aviation-adjacent mass-casualty violence sits almost entirely in…unscreened landside spaces rather than past [security] checkpoints.” This makes the failure to subject small charter plane passengers to TSA screening a possible loophole for introducing violence into major airports.
Attacks have included a thwarted attempted shooting at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in October 2025, a shooting at the baggage claim at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport in January 2017, a shooting at a Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) terminal in November 2013, a jet-fuel tank bomb plot at John F. Kennedy Airport in 2007, and a shooting at a ticket counter at LAX in July 2002.
Airline personnel with credentialed access do not have to go through standard security screening. SOAA’s research uncovered a number of instances when airline personnel have used their known crewmember (KCM) status to smuggle drugs and money. This has included a TSA officer who attempted to deliver what he believed to be methamphetamine through a secure-side checkpoint in exchange for money in 2022, an airport services worker who was attempting to import cocaine and counterfeit money via a cargo bag in 2025, and arrests of two dozen airport employees engaged in two drug smuggling rings run out of U.S. airports in 2025.
Passengers on commercial airliners have also been found smuggling large quantities of drugs and money, including a 22-year-old arrested at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport who was headed to São Paulo with $2.9 million worth of narcotics.
It stands to reason that criminal networks will exploit or are exploiting the lack of screening for standard passengers on small public charters to move their products or illicit funds. They may also use the limited scrutiny to engage in human or child trafficking.
Proactively Addressing Current Loopholes
The Safer Skies Act of 2025 would increase safety for all airline passengers who travel through our system of commercial airports by closing loopholes that could allow for drug or money smuggling, human and child trafficking, utilizing weapons and explosive devices with the intention of inflicting mass casualties, and other deadly threats.
Currently, the Safer Skies Act of 2025 is pending in the House Committee on Homeland Security. SOAA urges that this legislation be taken up for consideration and passage. For the security of the traveling public and to curtail illicit activities that impact Americans around the country, we must extend our nation’s most stringent security protocols to more of the passengers who regularly utilize our airline system.
