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An employee at Pittsburgh International Airport is charged with carrying a firearm without a license after security officials found him with a loaded handgun, according to Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein.
Court records identified the man as Damien Wright, of Wellsville, Ohio. Farbstein said he is an airplane cabin cleaner at the airport. He is accused of having a loaded 9 mm handgun with one round in the chamber in his backpack Sunday when he reported to work.
Farbstein said TSA officers conduct regular checks on airport employees who have access to secure areas of the airport.
“Insider threats are something that we are highly aware of and are constantly on the lookout for,” said Karen Keys-Turner, TSA’s Federal Security Director for the airport.
Called “insiders,” those who have access to sensitive areas in the airport could potentially misuse their access or hand off a prohibited item to someone else in the airport, Keys-Turner said.
The incident came two days after a Ligonier man was stopped with a loaded handgun in his carry-on luggage.
Robert Pozik Jr., 36, faces one misdemeanor charge of carrying a firearm without a license, court records show.
TSA officers stopped Pozik at the security checkpoint on Friday after they spotted a handgun on the X-ray scanner, said spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. The 9mm was loaded with one round in the chamber, she said.
“Part of being a responsible gun owner is knowing the importance of having a valid license to carry and knowing not to bring a firearm to a TSA security checkpoint,” said Karen Keys-Turner, TSA’s federal security director for the airport.
The gun caught Friday was the eighth stopped at Pittsburgh International so far this year.
Air travel plummeted in early 2020 as the covid-19 pandemic swept across the world, and two years later it is still has not fully recovered. Despite the decline in passengers, TSA officers have been catching more guns per person in Pittsburgh and across the country.
Prior to the pandemic, the number of guns caught at security checkpoints in Pittsburgh had been creeping slightly upward for years: 32 in 2017, 34 in 2018 and 35 in 2019, according to TSA data. In 2021, officers stopped 22 travelers with guns at the airport despite a pandemic-driven decline in air travel.
When a security officer spots a gun on the checkpoint X-ray machine, the entire security line grinds to halt while Allegheny County Police respond. County police alert the FBI and, while most travelers are permitted to take their flights, they can be fined anywhere from $3,000 to $13,910.
Megan Guza is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Megan at 412-380-8519, mguza@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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