A joint New York State and federal investigation into how false reports of gunfire at Kennedy International Airport in August led to mass panic found security protocols seriously lacking, with poor coordination between agencies and widely divergent levels of training for security personnel exacerbating the chaos.

Within minutes of the first reports of gunfire on the night of Aug. 14, a wave of panic swept across the airport as thousands of travelers and employees, receiving no official direction, took it upon themselves to run or hide.

The investigation by the task force, the details of which were outlined in a six-page letter released by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday, offered the first official account of how fear led to hysteria and ultimately put lives at risk.

The task force cited a failure of bureaucracy, where the lack of clear lines of authority and poor communication led to one of the nation’s busiest transit hubs grinding to a halt. The episode also raised serious concerns about what would have happened if it had not been a false alarm but an actual emergency.