FBI Seeks Clues in 747’s Cargo, Passenger Lists

FBI agents, searching for a motive and suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, fanned out Thursday in several U.S. cities asking about passenger identities and cargo that had been carried in the jumbo jet for delivery here.

The investigation “is certainly at the top of our list of priorities,” said Milton Ahlerich, the FBI’s assistant director for congressional and public affairs. Ahlerich, indicating the magnitude of the case, said that U.S. and British authorities are taking steps that will allow extraordinary international cooperation in the inquiry.

Stepped-Up FBI Role

The FBI stepped up its direct role in the investigation as both President Reagan and President-elect George Bush said that the United States will do all it can to track down those responsible. Reagan promised “every effort . . . to find out who is guilty of this savage and tragic thing and bring them to justice.” And Bush said that America should “seek hard and punish firmly” those responsible for the “cowardly” act that killed 259 passengers and crew members and at least 11 more people on the ground Dec. 21.

The Federal Aviation Administration, meanwhile, announced that in the wake of the Pan Am crash, U.S. air carriers will be required to tighten security procedures at certain foreign airports by inspecting all checked baggage and conducting physical checks of some carry-on luggage. More stringent security measures were already in effect Thursday at a number of European airports handling U.S. flights.

Investigators seeking to verify identification of those listed as passengers on the ill-fated Pan American World Airways jumbo jet are trying to learn if any were traveling under a pseudonym. “If someone was flying under an assumed identity, that could be a lead,” a source close to the inquiry said.

In an attempt to ascertain the contents of cargo listed for Flight 103, FBI agents and British investigators will be reviewing the senders and those listed as recipients to see if they had ordered and expected the shipments, the source said. “They will be identifying everybody that touched that airplane,” he added.

Ahlerich said investigators from Scotland and London are being “cross-detailed” to take part in the inquiry in this country while FBI agents are being accorded similar privileges in Britain. Such moves add significance to the repeated statements by U.S. and British authorities that investigators from both countries are cooperating completely with one another.

As an example of how cross-detailing works, Ahlerich said that British and U.S. agents will take part in sensitive or focal parts of the inquiries in each other’s countries. Initially, only a small number of agents have been cross-detailed, “but there will be more as they are needed,” he said.

Meanwhile, the British government appealed for help from Middle East governments in identifying the terrorists who placed the bomb aboard Flight 103.

In a radio interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe said: “The important thing now is for all the agencies and countries concerned to cooperate as fully as possible in trying to identify who was responsible for this outrage. . . . We clearly want to have maximum cooperation from governments throughout the world, including governments in the Middle East.”

Speaking to reporters at Los Angeles International Airport before flying to Palm Springs for the New Year’s holiday, President Reagan said that the FAA is “studying and making recommendations as to additional things we can do at airports to provide security for those who travel.”

Bush, who said that he reacted with “horror” to the announcement by British officials that the plane had been brought down by a bomb, acknowledged that it will be difficult to find those responsible for the disaster.

Speaking with reporters at Chase Field Naval Air Station in Beeville, Tex., Bush declined to discuss U.S. options if any perpetrator is tracked down. “The most imprudent thing a responsible official can do is to discuss what kind of action would be taken or would not be taken,” he said. “When I say ‘punish severely,’ that’s what I mean.”

The FAA had indicated Wednesday that security would be stepped up at U.S. airports as well as at foreign facilities. But after a day of consultation with security experts, FAA Administrator T. Allan McArtor told a news conference, “The threat appears to be more international in scope.”

The FAA chief said that the agency is encouraging U.S. carriers to “be more vigilant domestically.”

The tightened security for U.S. carriers abroad, which by Saturday is to be in effect at 103 airports in Western Europe and the Middle East, will “far exceed existing international standards,” McArtor said.

U.S. airlines abroad are currently required to use metal detectors to screen passengers and carry-on baggage and to ensure that passengers accompany their checked baggage.

The mandatory new rules call for random searches of some carry-on bags and 100% inspection of all checked luggage, meaning that each piece will have to be X-rayed or inspected by hand on its way from the departure gate to the airplane hold.

McArtor said that the “new measures may well result in passenger delays and inconvenience,” adding that they could require “check-in earlier, perhaps as much as an hour.” On Thursday, Pan Am was already advising its passengers abroad to arrive at the airport at least half an hour earlier than planned, spokesman Pamela Hanlon said in New York.

McArtor said in a statement that the Pan Am crash had reminded the world that “civil aviation . . . can still be vulnerable to criminal or terrorist acts” and said he believes that the more stringent procedures could “re-establish the balance.”

Representatives of the aviation industry welcomed the action and said that the airlines would comply fully with the new security initiatives.

The size of the FAA’s security inspection staff will be increased by 35%--from 550 people to 670--during the next 20 months, McArtor said.

Even such stepped-up measures would not guarantee the detection of plastic explosives such as those thought to have been used to blow up the Pan Am jumbo jet last week. Such explosives, composed of nonmetallic elements, are not revealed by X-rays and can easily be disguised.

But McArtor said that the agency will seek to accelerate delivery of so-called neutron-bombardment devices, which can detect plastic explosives. At least five such machines should be operational at U.S. or foreign airports by the beginning of 1990, he said.

4 Likely Suspect Groups

While State Department, FBI and other officials stressed that investigators are pursuing possible motives other than terrorism, such as insurance and individual vengeance, a U.S. official close to the investigation listed four groups likely to be regarded as suspects if terrorism is found to be the motivation.

They are Abu Nidal’s Revolutionary Council of Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the Palestine Liberation Front and the Jewish Defense League.

Times staff writers Cathleen Decker in Texas and James Gerstenzang in Los Angeles contributed to this story.