Empty your pockets, take off your shoes, lose your belt – most travelers in the United States are well-accustomed to the drill that awaits them at airport security lines across the nation. But getting aboard an aircraft by breaching the facility's perimeter security may be easier than you think, an investigation by the Associated Press revealed.

"Over the last decade, intruders have hopped fences, slipped past guardhouses (and) crashed their cars through gates," the news service summarized.

One man pedaled across a runway at Chicago O'Hare International Airport after he tossed his bike over a fence; at Philadelphia International Airport, an intruder rammed an SUV through a security gate and sped down a runway as a plane was about to land; and a mentally ill man at LAX hopped the fence eight times and twice made it all the way to a jet bridge.

All things told, there were at least 268 perimeter breaches since 2004, considering that some airports did not have or would not reveal their data to the AP. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called the newswire's findings about the 24 breaches at LAX "disturbing," though he admitted that he was not surprised.

"All it takes is one person who can get through and do something," Garcetti said during an "Ask the Mayor" segment on KNX-AM radio.

The AP analysis was prompted by last year's case of a teenager who had climbed a fence at San Jose International Airport, hoisted himself into a jet's wheel well and miraculously survived a flight to Hawaii, the San Jose Mercury News recalled.

The California city's Norman Y. Mineta International Airport, where the incident had occurred, ranked fifth in terms of the total number of perimeter security breaches, and Vicki Day, the facility's spokeswoman, noted that it was relatively accessible as "an urban airport surrounded by streets and sidewalks and businesses and stadiums."

Still, the AP's findings should not be taken lightly, airport security expert Jeff Price cautioned.

"This might be the next vulnerable area for terrorists as it becomes harder to get the bomb on the plane through the checkpoint," Price said.