The Nation - News from Feb. 12, 1989

Federal authorities should expand their tough new anti-terrorism measures to cover foreign air carriers with landing rights in the United States, said the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), in a letter to Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner, said he was “dismayed” that emergency security precautions taken after the holiday bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, which claimed 270 lives, apply only to domestic carriers with international flights. “I do not think it requires a quantum leap in logic to conclude that as it becomes more difficult to penetrate the security of U.S. flag carriers because of their superior security systems, the terrorist threat may well shift to foreign air carriers. . . . “ Bentsen said. About half of Americans traveling abroad fly on foreign carriers, he said. Last December, the Federal Aviation Administration announced tightened security procedures by U.S. air carriers at 103 airports in the Middle East and Western Europe.