Burbank Staffing : Airport Boosts Security After News Report

Airlines using Burbank Airport will increase security staffing for about 30 minutes a night in response to a television news report that charged a loophole in security procedures could be used by a plane hijacker.

In a report Monday night, KNBC-TV maintained that there was a dangerous security lapse because the screening stations, where metal detectors scan passengers for weapons, have not been staffed after the last outgoing flight departed about 9:40 each night.

People entering the terminal could go to the boarding area without being screened to meet any of several flights that arrive before the airport ceases operations about 10 p.m.

An airline security committee voted Monday afternoon to increase security after the station gave airport officials an advance look at its videotape. Metal detectors will be staffed until the last passenger has left the building, said Michael Kean, customer service manager for Alaska Airlines and chairman of the committee.

Lock Access to Runway

Before leaving, metal detector personnel will lock the access to the runway in the USAir terminal and the corridor leading to the boarding areas in the main terminal, Kean said.

Under Federal Aviation Administration rules, the airport is responsible for providing police officers, but the eight airlines that use it are responsible for operation of the metal-screening checkpoint, airport spokesman Victor Gill said. Airport police remain on duty all night, Gill said.

The KNBC-TV report showed one of the station’s cameramen setting off the metal detector’s alarm with a hidden camera in a large shoulder bag and walking on unchallenged because the metal-detector workers had gone.

The station suggested that the bag was large enough for weapons and that a hijacker could enter the boarding area, force his way onto the airfield and board a jetliner after it landed. It might also be possible, the report suggested, to hide a weapon in the boarding area to be retrieved before getting onto a plane the next day.

The airport and the airlines were in compliance with FAA requirements, “which focus on screening boarding passengers,” Gill said. Kean said the airport’s security system “went through a two-week FAA inspection in December and we passed with flying colors.”

“We don’t agree that the security of the system was compromised,” Gill said. He and Kean charged that the TV station did not report that its crews had been stopped twice--once by airport police and once by an airline employee--while making the videotape, which purported to show that they entered the secure area unchallenged.

KNBC-TV news director Tom Capra disagreed. He said the airline employee merely “waved at” the crew, “like waving hello,” and that the crew members were not questioned by airport police until after they had completed two nights of filming and had left the terminal.