Background

Between 1949 and 1989 there were more than 95 explosions aboard commercial aircraft around the world, killing 2,217 people. The bomb aboard Pan Am 103 in 1988 resulted in the deaths of 270 people, 11 of whom were killed by falling debris on the ground. If the explosion aboard TWA 800 was the result of a bomb, 500 people headed for or leaving from New York will have been murdered by these two events alone.

Yet in the more than four decades since carnage of this kind has been recorded, little has been done to effectively curtail tragedies like this. In fact, the security in place in airports today remains as it was in the mid 1970’s, designed to prevent aircraft hijackings of airliners in flight.

The First Hijackings
In July and August of 1961, three American registered commercial airliners belonging to Eastern Airlines, Continental and Pan American were hijacked in the air during attempts to divert all three to Havana. In response to the hijackings, President Kennedy established an interagency task force to deal with the problem of hijacking.

In 1968 and 1969 there were a combined 233 reported hijacking incidents internationally, nearly all of them involved large airliners, 40 of these involved planes registered in the United States.

On September 6, 1970, four airliners bound for New York were hijacked over Europe in separate incidents that involved two aircraft registered to American carriers. Combined, the planes carried 600 passengers. One of the airliners, a Pan American 747, exploded at the Cairo International Airport after all on board had departed.

On September 12, 1970, two of the other planes that had been hijacked, belonging to TWA and SWISS AIR respectively, were blown up in the Jordanian desert together with a BOAC airliner hijacked about the same time. All of the passengers had been taken hostage before the explosions.

Dealing with Air Piracy
The United States government has taken a number of steps to combat air piracy, most notably in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Much of the security in place today in our airports is a result of government ordered programs designed to thwart air piracy.

Starting with banning of the carrying of firearms and other weapons by passengers on board airliners in 1961, the authorization for the arming of flight crews shortly thereafter, the voluntary use of passenger "hijacker profiles" by airlines in 1968, the employment of "Sky Marshals" in 1970, and finally the passengers use of metal detectors and X-ray screening for all passengers and their carry-on baggage in 1972, the United States has created an airport security standard driven by the need to prevent aircraft hijacking but which is of little practical use in this era of sabotage and terrorism.

We are left with a 1970’s solution for a 1990’s problem. And notwithstanding the fact that there is a current requirement that international passenger baggage be submitted to X-ray screening, and a limited use of high tech bomb detecting equipment being used for some passenger baggage, for the vast majority of air travelers, security at airports means standing in line for what really amounts to a cursory check for weapons.

Indeed, any examination of domestic airport security will show that the bulk of the security requirement is conducted by poorly trained, low paid, civilian security guards most often only able to detect the most blatant attempt to carry a weapon such as a knife or gun on to an aircraft. Sophisticated explosive devices remain impervious to this kind of screening.

Airport Facilities

While domestic airports may be owned and operated by a variety of municipalities and governmental authorities, they remain subject to federal regulation. All aviation activities are either licensed, certificated, or supervised by the FAA, and any activity that affects passenger safety and security is clearly within its purview.

Local Handling of Airport Security
However, airport security, through mandated by congressional legislation and administered by the FAA, has been handed off to overlapping local police and private sector companies for operation. More often than not, sworn airport police officers patrol roadways, parking facilities and common areas of the terminals; private security personnel secure entry to concourses where the gates are situated, and the airlines themselves are responsible for their ticket counters and gate areas.

While the airport police clearly have a duty to secure the airport’s perimeter, the responsibility for the "ramp," the restricted area where passenger baggage is stored prior to loading, where air cargo activities take place, where food service facilities are found, and where vendors ply their wares and conduct their services, remains a security responsibility question mark. It is also the ramp where you will find a vast force of airline workers assigned to clearing, provisioning and maintenance of aircraft and airline facilities.

No Overall Authority
Neither the airport authority, the airlines nor the FAA have been willing to accept overall authority for security at our airports. Currently, passenger safety and security, as well as the securing of passenger baggage and cargo, are considered carrier responsibilities pursuant to FAA mandates.

Security for air travelers has become a law enforcement matter, and airlines, many of which struggle to marshal the resources necessary to keep their planes in the air, have neither the ability nor the authority to provide adequate security for air travelers.

Air carriers load on average 2.3 million pieces of passenger baggage daily in the United States; each year approximately the same number of bags as is loaded daily are "misdirected.' If air carriers cannot ship baggage with greater success rate than that, it is not realistic to expect them to screen and secure bags with much success.

Security Not High Priority
Airports in America were not built with security considerations as a high priority. JFK Airport in particular is a security nightmare. Access control at JFK means controlling some 40,000 workers, 90,000 passengers and 800 planes, each day, on over 300 acres of land.

Because of the immensity of the task of controlling access to the various areas of the airport--terminals, parking lots, hangars, commissaries, maintenance facilities, storage facilities, fuel storage areas, vehicle garages, a kennel, a fire house and many more--access control has been parceled out by the landlord, the New York Port Authority, to its tenants, who are mainly the major air carries.

JFK’s access control problems are shared by our other great domestic airports such as O’Hare in Chicago, Dallas/Ft.Worth, Miami International, Hartsfield in Atlanta, and Los Angeles International, each employing some variation on the theme of parceling out security to its tenants together with a proprietary police force for common areas.

Federal Security Standards Lacking
Because our domestic airports are not federal facilities, despite the overriding federal authority for their operations, they lack any kind of federal security standards for access to their restricted areas. Access to aircraft, baggage, cargo, passengers, hangers and the like is granted by carriers to their employees by virtue of employment.

And although workers are usually issued airport identification by the airport’s police, the issuance is usually based only on a verification by the employer airline of employment. Rules governing fingerprinting and police background checks are generally covered by state law, which absent any federal overriding authority, would prohibit such checks.

And except when a specific federal statute is violated, enforcement is often left to the discretion of the employer or a disinterested local authority willing to allow violations such as trespass to go unpunished.

Recommendations

• The overall security responsibility for domestic airports should be invested in the federal government. All standards for screening passengers, passenger baggage, cargo, and provisions carried on board commercial airlines should be established, supervised and be the responsibility of the FAA.

  To carry out its security responsibility, the FAA should be allowed to deputize existing security personnel, including airport police, who would be empowered to act pursuant to federal law and FAA regulations. A transfer of security responsibility directly to the federal government would create uniform airport security for air travelers across the United States.

• Access to domestic airports should be in conformity with federal regulations established by the FAA. Access to terminals and gates by passengers and visitors should be in accordance with uniform regulations for all air carriers in all airports. Access by airline employees, vendors, and other airport workers should be specific, limiting access to those areas for which the individual has been cleared.

  While access by workers and vendors may be controlled by carriers it should be done in strict conformity with FAA regulations.

• Every domestic commercial airport should be designated as a federal facility for security purposes. All regulations affecting security, including violations of criminal law, should be considered a violation of federal law or regulation and prosecuted accordingly.

  Every airport worker issued an airport identification card should be fingerprinted, undergo a criminal background check and be issued only that level of clearance necessary to carry out his or her employment and consistent with an approved level of security. Persons with unrestricted access to aircraft, passengers, passenger baggage and cargo should be permitted access only upon passing an appropriate criminal background check.

Supervision and Control of Employees and Vendors

The current FAA requirement that airline personnel undergo a five-year employment background check fails to adequately provide assurances that personnel with access to restricted areas of the airport qualify for the access being provided.

The current background check is supposed to identify any breaks in employment during the preceding five-year period, which could indicate some criminal history during that time. In fact, the check is nothing more than a telephone verification of employment, usually conducted by a firm contracted for that purpose, which involves calling the "employer" whose name appears on the employee application.

Some Employees Not Checked
Furthermore, a large number of airline employees working the ramp side of the airport--during some seasons as many as half of the employees--are temporary seasonal personnel who may not go through any background check whatsoever. For a valid check of a criminal background, a fingerprint check through the FBI’s NCIC computer is needed.

The authority to fingerprint ramp service personnel by their employers has not been granted and in some states is specifically prohibited. Of the more than 40,000 employees employed at JFK, it is safe to say that the vast majority have not been fingerprinted.

Lack of Daily Employee Security
While it is the rule for passengers and flight crews to walk through metal detectors before accessing gate and other restricted areas of the airport, the same cannot be said of other airline employees and vendors. Indeed at some airports, employees working the ramp side of the facility report to their time-clocks and locker areas through back gates or entrances under the terminal, and if there is a security station at these entrances the employee’s identification card is all that is needed for entry.

In some instances doors are locked and entry is granted by punching in a code number provided for employees. Such a system allows not only multiple exits and entries throughout the day, but also for the carrying of uninspected parcels as well.

At some airports it is common practice for ramp personnel to visit restricted areas on the ramp and in terminals when not actually on duty. In some instances these employees are visiting from other stations in the system and are not subjected to any supervision at all during the visit. The poor control of ramp employees creates an enormous breach in security at our airports and, until that breach is corrected, further scrutinizing of the passenger side of these facilities cannot be justified.

Lack of Vendor Security
The procedures for controlling vendors and outside maintenance personnel are similarly flawed. Vendors currently gain access to the ramp side of airports without undergoing either a personal background check or a search of their vehicles. Frequently, once access is gained to the ramp to service one or more airline or airport facility, both personnel and vehicles are free to roam at will allowing access to aircraft, baggage and cargo without similar background checks of their employees and to have issued a picture identification each time they enter the facility.

For random visits by vendors, temporary identification should be required and such visitors should be supervised at all times.

The current level of supervision of ramp personnel is inadequate from a security point of view. The current system of aircraft cleaning, baggage and cargo sorting and loading allows for supervision by "Leads", a term for senior line personnel acting as foremen under the direction of a management supervisor.

Because of the critical security issues surrounding contact with aircraft, baggage and cargo, management supervisors need to maintain closer contact with line personnel to ensure that they are not in possession of bags or containers not required for their assignments, and that proper security procedures are followed. For there to be proper accountability, representatives of management need to take over these responsibilities.

Recommendations

• The current system requiring a five-year prior employment check for all airline employees should be replaced by a requirement that all airline, airport and contract vendor employees submit to fingerprinting, a criminal background check including arrest records and a five-year prior employment check conducted by the prospective employer in writing.

• Every person entering a restricted area of an airport should be subjected to security screening including the search of any container being carried onto the property. The "restricted areas" should include any portion of the airport not open to the general pubic without first going through security.

  This practice should apply to all except for police officers in uniform and on duty, and should include all employee entrances and accesses.

• All ramp service, vendor, maintenance and other personnel authorized to work on the ramps or other restricted areas of the airport should be subject to appropriate supervision to ensure that all security procedures are strictly adhered to. Levels of supervision for security should be established by the FAA.

Currently, domestic airports employ electronic and mechanical security equipment to monitor access to restricted areas, search passenger baggage and cargo for weapons and explosive devices, and to secure doors and gates.

Limited Scope of Security Equipment
The ability to detect explosives in checked baggage and cargo, however, is severely limited by the unavailability of equipment able to detect small quantities of explosives such as semtex, which was responsible for the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. Only international baggage is subject to X-ray, notwithstanding the fact that domestic passengers’ carry-on items are subject to X-ray and metal detector searches.

It is obvious to all observers of airport security that the levels of security now in place do little more than seek out traditional weapons and explosive devices, which in the past were used by air pirates. Any serious effort to examine checked baggage would require the X-ray examination of all baggage loaded on to all flights.

If airports are not only going to continue the current level of passenger security but also increase it, the procedures now in place for screening and searching need to be improved to make them both effective and efficient.

Security Personnel Under-Trained
Currently, airport security personnel consistently fail the FAA’s spot checks at X-ray stations and metal detectors. The contract security personnel currently manning these security positions are for the most part under-trained for their responsibilities and inadequately supervised.

Passengers are consistently subjected to inconsistent treatment; sometimes being required to empty their carry-on bags to identify items that had been passed through dozens of times before in the same airport.

Metals Detectors Work Inconsistently
The metal detectors, or magnetometers, are set at varying levels, often depending on the airport, station or air carrier for the setting. Under this system, what is detected depends on the sensitivity of the setting, which is often more a function of the desire to speed up the waiting line than it is to identify prohibited items.

As bombs require some form of electronics to be detonated, the ability to detect hand-carried portable radios, pagers and cellular telephones, all of which require batteries, is essential and examining them at security stations is key to effective screening of passengers for explosives. Currently, these items are regularly passed through security without detection and go unchecked, thereby undermining the rationale behind the screening for carry-on explosive devices.

Procedures Not Consistent
Currently, there are no uniform procedures for operating airport surveillance equipment, supervising security screening stations, controlling locked gates to restricted areas or approving vehicle access to ramps, to identify just a few of the security procedures that vary from airport to airport and airline to airline.

Frequently, persons by-passing security at screening points, are discovered by a review of video tapes, but were not detected at the time of the violation because of inadequate procedures. Combination numbers to locked doors accessing restricted areas are often not changed on a regular basis to eliminate use by persons no longer authorized, and vehicles entering ramps are not always identified as to the areas of their authorization.

The absence of standardized airport procedures administered on a consistent basis allows for serious vulnerability to sabotage of aircraft and an unacceptable risk to air travelers.

Recommendations

• All checked baggage on all flights should be X-rayed or hand searched if X-ray is unavailable. All airports should provide state of the art technology for detecting explosive materials in suspicious checked baggage and cargo or meeting high security profiles as established by the FBI.

• A uniform training standard for all airport security personnel should be created by the appropriate federal law enforcement agency to be administered under the supervision of the FAA. No airport security officer should be employed unless certificated by the FAA as to training and fitness.

• The FAA needs to establish uniform procedures for access to restricted areas and for the use of all electronic and mechanical locking systems to ensure that each security device is used efficiently, properly maintained and regularly updated to provide the maximum protection for air travelers.

In the more than 45 years since the need to impose strict security standards for commercial aviation was first recognized, little has been done to reasonably ensure that air travelers would be protected from acts of sabotage and terrorism.

If it had not been for the dramatic effect of air piracy on a public already cautious when it came to flying, tragically little would have occurred to improve security for air travelers despite 95 aircraft explosions and the loss of over two thousand lives during that period. The United States, until recently, having been spared the consequence of terrorism made a living reality in most of the rest of the world, now finds itself trying to combat it by a timid attempt at closing the security breaches left open at our airports, which have become a favorite target of terrorists who try to capitalize on our latent fear of flying.

Restrictions Are on the Passenger
We continue to take the easy road, focusing our efforts on further restricting the movements of the victims rather than addressing real challenges presented by the need to tighten up the security holes at the problem’s source, the airports and those who use them for their criminal acts.

Absent requiring naked passengers traveling without baggage, there is little more that can effectively be done to secure the passenger side of the airport security equation. Ultimately, explosive devices are now placed on aircraft on the ramp side of the airport by employees or others, perhaps unwittingly, who move about the airport relatively unscreened and unsupervised in an environment in which real security is a fiction. Any serious effort to improve security for air travelers should now focus on the ramp side of the airport.

Improve Security With Current Resources
With a combination of technology, training, enforced security procedures and centralized responsibility, most of the existing holes in airport security can be closed. If the federal government, through the FAA and the FBI, accept responsibility for all aspects of airport security, which in this age of international terrorism they are obliged to do, most of what needs to be done can be done with existing resources.

The cry that it cost too much to secure our airports, and that there is a limit to the patience of air travelers already spending too much time going through security is being heard. The former is being offered by those preparing the public to accept paying hundreds of millions of dollars to "cat scan" their baggage, and the latter comes from those who refuse to look at the problem created by a wide open back door to the airports. Both are wrong.

The need to sniff every checked bag for semtex or some other chemical explosive is questionable, since the explosive doesn’t detonate itself and the electronics required for the job can be seen on X-ray. And passengers need not spend any more time at security stations than is now spent if security personnel are trained adequately and passengers are advised as to what to limit in their hand baggage.

In fact, what is now being suggested publicly is more, much more, of the same, and if we buy it, air travelers will continue to suffer more of the same security problems before and after take-off.