AIRLINE INSECURITY
By Michael Hammerschlag 950 wds
This war, as the
President warned, would be fought at home- by victimized innocents. But the
security measures taken to defend the air transport system have been pitifully
lacking. Somehow the foolish conclusion was that the problem wasn’t bad people getting on planes, it was weapons; so little old ladies and pilots
were terrorized for their nail clippers without reason. Weapons, though, can be
made from anything- a plastic knife, a rope to strangle, a pen, a baggage cart.
5 burly hijackers might not even need weapons. The screening was promiscuous,
stupid - not directed towards likely threats.
Meanwhile,
while pilots were subject to humiliating searches by minimum wage screeners; 3
million unsearched and unscreened checked bags a day were dumped into
the holds; and 600,000 ramp workers- cabin cleaners, gas refuelers, caterers,
cargo haulers + mechanics were allowed access to planes with NO daily security check.
“It is assumed, dangerous as it may be, that if you’ve issued that badge to a
person, they have successfully undergone a background check of the last 10
years,” says FAA spokesman Mike Fergus. Although the law says all bags must be
inspected by end of the year, that’s impossible, unless Congress and the
Transportation Security Administration take radical action. The new TSA has
only been allotted $1.5 billion of the $3-7 billion they need for airport
improvements- it is supposed to be paid for by the $2.50 a flight segment fee
started Feb. 1, which should bring in about $2 billion a year. There are only
162 of the roughly $1 million CT (computerized tomography) scanners used to
detect explosives installed, but some 2200 more are needed to scan all US
bags. 90% of these machines are made by one company- Invision, which has been
turning out only 8 a month but claims it could make 50. Another company-L3,
could make 40 a month, so even an instant crash program would take over 2
years. But 5 months after the bombings, according to Invision rep Alisa Hicks,
“There have been no new orders as a
result of 9-11.” The massive urgent order from the Department of
Transportation hasn’t materialized; finally on March 5th, 6
months after 9-11, they did order 100 machines and parts for 300 more. They
also ordered 10 more machines for the test-bed airport San Francisco, which now
screens 20% of checked bags with it’s 13 machines, but the average across the
US is
under 9%. Only 55 airports out of 429 have any bomb detector scanners,
which search for the densities of explosives. Air cargo (60% on passenger
planes), including postal packages, must also be screened.
The
truth is it’s a miracle that 5 to 10 planes haven’t been brought down by
checked luggage bombs- Ashcroft’s much maligned roundup may have been
successful in breaking up Al Qaeda cells. Pretending passenger bag matching can
substitute for actual inspections accomplishes nothing- if the fiends are ready
to die. They even made an insane exception for connecting flights, but Ramzi Yousef,
in his ’95 plan to blow up 11 planes over the Pacific, was planning to do just that- put bombs on planes that went
from Philippines to Asia and get off as the planes continued to LAX.
The
Skymarshal program has been another disappointment- apparently only a handful
have been hired. A pilot, in a devastating commentary, writes, “I have yet
to see an air marshal on any of my
flights and I have not spoken to another pilot who has (except those flying
out of National Airport).” I have a
simple cheap solution: allow local,
state, and federal police, to fly free - they know how to handle weapons
and recognize shady characters. Train marksmen from larger departments in using
low velocity bullets in an aircraft, and certify them. Police Departments could
even donate officers for 1 or 2 days a month. National Guardsmen in the airport
are another cosmetic gesture; put them on the tarmac access to check ramp
workers’ ID’s and belongings. Pilots should be allowed to carry aircraft guns,
and flight attendants stun guns, which still haven’t been approved (luckily
they haven’t taken away axes). The USAir pilot led off in handcuffs had said, “Why
are you worried about tweezers when I could crash the plane?” Zero tolerance? No, zero brains. Pilots are not the same as everyone
else, and a Middle Eastern man doesn’t present the same threat as an elderly
woman from Dubuque. Profiling is essential if we don’t want to waste resources
and cause huge delays.
I
was supposed to fly over Manhattan on September 11th. I’ve played
out again and again what I would have done in a hijacking to assuage my rage at
the terrorists and the government’s incompetence. The FAA might, if they had
issued a detailed warning instead of the cryptic “beware cockpit intrusion” at
9:05am, have saved the victims of the Pa. plane, which was hijacked about 50
minutes later. Another mass downing of planes would cripple the entire airline
system, divide us into separate colonies, and devastate the economy, which was Bin Laden’s last instruction. In 2001 United
lost $2.1 billion, US Air $2 billion, American/TWA $1.7 billion – they
wouldn’t survive another blow. Up to 70,000 went through Al Qaeda training
camps, and they can’t all be as moronic as Richard Reid, who could have
destroyed a $150 million plane, but for a 50¢ Bic lighter. In the Gulf War we
moved ½ million troops and equipment to the other side of the world in 4½
months, we put a man on the Moon in 8½ years; we can do this: take the
needed defensive measures. We’ve reacted stupidly and slothfully to the brutal
attack of September 11; and the evil ones won’t wait forever.
Michael Hammerschlag has
written commentaries + articles for
Seattle Times, Providence Journal, Honolulu Advertiser, Columbia
Journalism Review, MediaChannel, Moscow News, Tribune, + Guardian and a
former travel agent. In a newsletter he predicted a terrorist attack on New York or DC… last July. His website
is http://mikehammer.tripod.com e-mail
hammerschlag@bigfoot.com