New Rules to Toughen Airport Security Offer Protection for Travelers : Legislation: Spurred by Lockerbie bombing, federal bill calls for greater stringency in issuing ID badges and higher standards for airline screening personnel.

Almost three years after the Lockerbie, Scotland, disaster in which 270 people were killed when a terrorist-placed bomb exploded aboard a Pan Am jet, U.S. airline and airport security personnel will be subjected to more stringent hiring, training and performance standards.

The security upgrade, which went into effect Sept. 19, is part of a Federal Aviation Administration mandate outlined in the Aviation Security Improvement Act passed by Congress in November, 1990. That bill stemmed from recommendations made by a Presidential Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, appointed in the wake of the Lockerbie incident, which took place in the Scottish skies on Dec. 21, 1988.

There is much room for improvement. On Nov. 8, about three weeks after many of the new measures went into effect, a baggage handler at LAX managed to smuggle a handgun on board an Alitalia 747 bound for Milan. Apparently distraught over a breakup in marriage plans, he shot himself in the cargo hold, lapsed into a coma after being discovered when the plane arrived in Milan, and died last week.

Among other provisions, the FAA’s new airport security measures specifically:

--Forbid airport authorities, after Jan. 1, from issuing ID badges that provide unescorted access to such sensitive security areas as baggage handling points and the general Tarmac area where planes are parked and loaded to anyone who has not successfully completed a security training program. By Oct. 1, 1992, at least 50% of all individuals possessing airport-issued IDs that provide unescorted access to such areas will need to successfully complete an FAA-approved security course. After May 1, 1993, all personnel with such IDs must have completed the course.

--Call for tougher hiring, training and performance standards for airport screening personnel, including a higher degree of ability to read, speak and write English.

--Require standardized training of airport operators regarding the issuance of IDs to only certified airport personnel. The new training stresses the responsibility of the person issuing the ID to help prevent the use of borrowed, stolen or lost IDs.

--Require the stationing of a federal security manager at major U.S. airports, and designation by airports of an airport security coordinator to monitor various security functions and act as the liaison with the FAA. It’s the FAA that sets minimum security standards for U.S. airports, and makes sure that those standards are met.

“These federal security managers will help us assure that American air travelers get the best protection against threats to civil aviation,” said FAA administrator James B. Busey.

Under terms of the Aviation Security Improvement Act, the federal security managers had to be at work within one year from the time the bill was passed. These administrators are now in place at all of the required airports, which include Los Angeles International as well as airports in Atlanta, Washington (National and Dulles), Baltimore, Boston, Chicago (O’Hare), Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston (Intercontinental), Miami, New York (John F. Kennedy), San Francisco, Seattle-Tacoma and St. Louis.

The federal security manager at LAX, Paul Gray, works directly with the airport security coordinator, Stephen Yee, who also serves as airport manager.

Tougher requirements for airport screening personnel are expected to play a major role in upgrading security. The stakes could hardly be higher.

A Pacific Southwest Airlines jet crashed into a hillside near Paso Robles, Calif., on Dec. 7, 1987, after a former PSA employee--who had been dismissed from his job but still had one of his ID badges--managed to bypass security and board the jet with a gun. Authorities believe that during the flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the man shot his former supervisor, also a passenger, and then killed the cockpit crew, causing the plane to crash and kill all 43 people on board.

To underscore the problem of lax airport/airline security, in May of 1990 the father of a victim killed in the Pan Am/Lockerbie disaster flew from Heathrow Airport in London to New York with a hidden device containing marzipan in a cassette recorder--to simulate the concealed plastic bomb that downed the Pan Am jet.

FAA inspectors themselves have succeeded in getting dummy weapons and explosives past screening points, and more than 50 airlines have been fined more than $5.2 million by the FAA for such security violations since October, 1987.

Under FAA rules, airlines are responsible for the preboarding screening of passengers and their carry-on bags. The carriers generally contract with private security companies for this service. Personnel from these companies run the security apparatus that checks passengers and their carry-on bags. The LAX baggage handler who shot himself aboard the Alitalia flight to Milan was employed by DynAir Corp., a company hired by Alitalia to load luggage.

As part of the Aviation Security Improvement Act, the FAA’s tougher airport security standards, which apply both to employees of airlines and outside security companies hired by the carriers to run airport security functions, require screeners to possess either a high school diploma, a General Equivalency Diploma or “a combination of education and experience” that is considered sufficient to enable the applicant to handle the job effectively.

One of the more sensitive aspects of this overhauling of standards covers language capabilities.

When it proposed the tougher airport security requirements last April, the FAA said that many passengers had been complaining of frustration, inconvenience and confusion due to poor communication with screening personnel. The FAA also noted that screening jobs in major cities are generally entry-level positions that attract substantial numbers of recent immigrants whose English language skills are often poor.

“We’ve received these kinds of comments from passengers over a period of years,” said Elly Brekke, an FAA spokeswoman in Los Angeles.

As a result, the FAA has established the requirement that screeners be able to speak, read and write English sufficiently to communicate with English-speaking persons, as well as understand written and oral instructions that are part of the security process.

The English language requirement is not as strict at U.S. airline stations abroad because finding screening personnel who can read, write and speak English at foreign airports may be difficult.

Accordingly, the new rule calls for at least one person who can functionally read and speak--but not necessarily write--English to be present while the U.S. airline’s passengers are undergoing security screening.