Britain Plans Test to Upgrade Airport Security
Britain will infiltrate its airports with mock terrorists smuggling fake bombs and weapons in an attempt to upgrade its security system, officials said Thursday on the first anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster.
On Dec. 21, 1988, a terrorist bomb hidden in a cassette recorder and believed to have been loaded at either London’s Heathrow airport or Frankfurt, Germany, blew Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
Department of Transport officials said Thursday that the security proposals are a response to the disaster.
The transport department will more thoroughly investigate airport workers with access to areas behind security checkpoints. The department also will hire more security agents to screen all airport baggage, officials said.
Department officials said the undercover agents will try to evade detection while ferrying fake bombs and arms into secure areas. The agents also will carry out “penetration exercises,” cutting through security fences and attempting to gain access to aircraft control towers and other areas.
A spokesman for a parliamentary committee on airport security said committee members are concerned that the steps are not enough.
“We’re worried that it will be just a cosmetic change, taking the same (security) people and calling them by a different name,” he said.
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