Travelers, Luggage Examined as Britain Tightens Air Security

Passengers traveling on U.S. airlines were questioned about their luggage and had all of their bags X-rayed Thursday in a security clampdown at British airports ordered after investigators found that plastic explosives had caused the Dec. 21 crash in southwestern Scotland of Pan Am Flight 103.

At Britain’s four airports handling U.S. carriers, passengers were asked such questions as who had packed their bags, when they were packed, whether the bags had been out of their sight and whether strangers had given them parcels to carry.

All checked baggage, as well as hand baggage, was X-rayed, and suitcases were sealed with tough plastic strips to prevent their being opened between check-in desks and aircraft. Anything arousing suspicion was opened and searched by hand.

At Heathrow Airport’s busy Terminal 3, used by American carriers Pan Am and TWA, police patrolled with submachine guns issued to them after 1986 terrorist incidents in Europe. The tightened security was ordered Wednesday by the Department of Transport.

In France, police said security was heightened at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports.

In Amsterdam, the Netherlands’ NRC Handelsblad newspaper reported that a number of Asian airlines have told Dutch authorities that they have been warned of a possible hijacking in the coming days on their aircraft.

The newspaper said that Philippine Airlines, China Airlines and Garuda Indonesia Airways told authorities at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport of the hijack warning.

The British security directive, taking effect soon after the disclosure that a bomb blew Flight 103 out of the sky, was aimed at Heathrow Airport, neighboring Gatwick Airport, Manchester Airport in northern England and Prestwick Airport in Scotland.

Meanwhile, salvage teams continued to search through wreckage strewn over 100 square miles around the village of Lockerbie, Scotland, for clues about the bombing.

In a field outside a church in the countryside near Lockerbie, engineers sawed up the plane’s nose section for removal.