Athens Airport Gets Low Marks : Inspection Team Faults Its Security Measures

Security measures at the Athens airport, where armed terrorists hijacked a Rome-bound plane last week, were found unsatisfactory two months ago by the International Air Transport Assn., a spokesman said today.

Spokesman John Brindley said that some airlines dissatisfied with security at the airport, including TWA, had introduced their own screening of passengers who already had passed through the Greek security measures.

“The Greek government told the airlines this must stop at the end of May, which is why we went down there a couple of months ago” and examined Greek security plans, he said.

“We said it really isn’t good enough,” he said.

Brindley said Greek authorities had allowed the airlines to continue double-screening measures until the end of June. At that time, Greek guards, trained by a group of airline specialists, including the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, were to assume the responsibility.

George Tzouvalis, an official of the Greek Civil Aviation Administration, denied that the Athens airport had received low marks in the association’s examination.

Tzouvalis, who was attending a session of the European Civil Aviation Conference in Strasbourg, France, said the international group’s inspection had found security measures at the airport satisfactory.

He also said he believed the guns used by the terrorists in the hijacking Friday had been placed aboard the TWA Boeing 727 in Cairo, where the flight originated.

“The general feeling in Greece,” he said, “is that the hijackers could not have taken their guns with them when they boarded the plane. The guns were probably on board” when the airliner landed at Athens.

An Egyptian security official immediately denied the charge.