A Huge Hole in Airport Security

03/15/2007

NY Times
Published: March 16, 2007


While enormous effort is focused on screening airline passengers for explosives or weapons before they can board a commercial flight, it remains shockingly easy for airport employees to sneak into secure areas and carry dangerous materials onto a plane without detection. That frightening truth has been underscored by a flagrant breach of security at the Orlando Airport in Florida last week that was detected only because of an anonymous tip.

The breach in this case was a small-bore smuggling operation. A customer service agent for Comair, a subsidiary of Delta, and another Comair employee used their work uniforms and identification badges to gain access to restricted areas, where they stored a duffle bag containing 13 handguns, an assault rifle and a stash of marijuana near the departure gates. One of the men later retrieved the bag and took it aboard a Delta flight to Puerto Rico as carry-on luggage. Based on the tip, authorities pulled one of the men off the plane before it took off and, disturbingly late, caught the other with the duffle bag in San Juan.

It is small comfort that the Transportation Security Administration says that no passengers were put at risk because at least two federal marshals were on board. Had the smugglers been terrorists, they could presumably have fired their guns or brought down the plane with a powerful explosive.

The vulnerability exposed by this incident is the lack of checkpoint screening for thousands of workers who have access to secure areas. The T.S.A. relies instead on background checks at the time of hiring, supplemented by random screening at many airports. In the wake of this latest embarrassment, the T.S.A. flooded five airports with a temporary surge of additional agents, hardly a solution.

The Orlando airport, long confronted by smuggling, took a more sensible course by starting to screen all workers before they enter secure areas, thus joining Miami and Heathrow Airport in London. A sensible bill introduced by Representative Nita Lowey of New York and co-sponsored by Representative Bennie Thompson Mississippi — both Democrats — would create a pilot program at five airports to screen all workers with access to secure areas under the standards used for passengers. Airports typically object that such screening is cumbersome and costly. But it seems foolish to screen passengers and airline crews vigilantly and then ignore workers who could do just as much damage.