Probes Found Breaches in Security

Security screening employees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport make about as much as the airport’s janitors. Scratch that. The janitors do better. They both earn $16,700 a year, but the employees who sweep the floors also get sick pay, health insurance and a pension. Not so for those responsible for detecting guns, knives and bombs in passenger luggage.

Maybe that’s why almost nobody who worked at the airport metal detectors and luggage X-ray machines at Sea-Tac airport in May 1998 still worked there a year later. Across the country, turnover among screening employees at major airports--considered one of the most crucial jobs in assuring passenger safety--averaged 126% in the 1990s.

At Boston’s Logan International, from which both aircraft that smashed into the World Trade Center departed, turnover was 207%. Turnover at St. Louis--one of the major aerial crossroads of the Midwest--reached 416% in 1999, according to the General Accounting Office, which last year chastised the Federal Aviation Administration for taking so long to address what it called “a key line of defense” against airborne terrorism.

The reality of American airport security, industry analysts say, is that you get what you pay for. For years, passenger screening has been contracted out by the airlines--often to the lowest bidder. The most sophisticated baggage X-ray equipment can cost $1 million a unit or more--so only 130 of the devices are in place now. Sophisticated passenger profiling requires highly trained employees--and passengers willing to put up with potential delay and intrusion.

“You’re always weighing the kind of security measures you take in relation with your desire to be an open society. But with the aftermath of this tragedy, we will again have those issues on the table,” said Rodney Slater, who was U.S. Transportation secretary from 1997 to 2000.

“We haven’t done what needs to be done because it was convenient not to do it,” added Issy Boim, an airline security consultant who helped develop security systems in place at the Israeli airline, El Al. “First, it would cost more money. And secondly, the kind of security measures we’re talking about can make your life miserable.”

Despite the billions of dollars invested in aviation security, federal auditors for years have been critical of the system’s performance, from failure to conduct even rudimentary criminal background checks on airport employees to the apparent ease with which outsiders have been able to penetrate the supposed wall of security at major airports.

Undercover Agents Slipped Through

Last year, the GAO sent a team of undercover agents to a variety of federal agencies and to two major airports--Ronald Reagan Washington National in Washington, D.C., and Orlando International in Florida.

At both airports, the agents acquired phony law enforcement badges and ID, bought passenger tickets under the fake names, and, carrying weapons and valises, were waved around airport metal detectors, the GAO said. Two years earlier, agents from the inspector general’s office made 173 attempts to improperly enter secure areas at eight airports. They were successful 117 times, records show.

“Once we penetrated secure areas, we boarded aircraft operated by 35 different air carriers,” the investigators said. “Passengers were on board 18 of the aircraft we boarded. In 12 instances, we were seated and ready for departure at the time we concluded our tests.” In a separate series of tests last year at 80 airports, FAA agents were able to improperly board 57 aircraft.

The FAA found at least 136 security breaches at Logan International Airport from 1997 to 1999, resulting in fines of $178,000 to major airlines and the Massachusetts Port Authority. On at least three occasions, FAA inspectors were able to gain access to airplanes parked at gates overnight, and screeners at terminal checkpoints often failed to detect dangerous items planted by the inspectors.

In response, the port authority last year permanently locked 26 doors leading from terminals to the tarmac, among other security improvements.

Security failures were apparent as recently as June 2000, when the FAA said it was seeking $99,000 in civil penalties from American Airlines.

Federal inspectors found several violations in checked baggage security, including bags transported without the passenger who checked them, failure to check passenger ID and failure to ask appropriate security questions. American took immediate corrective action.

Industry analysts say screeners working for low wages with little training or certification requirements pose security setbacks at airports across the country.

“The weakest link in the system is the security checkpoint. The screeners aren’t properly trained. And because they don’t make a living wage, turnover is remarkably high, with the result that people are inexperienced,” said Dawn Deeks, spokeswoman for the Assn. of Flight Attendants, which represents 50,000 members at 26 airlines.

“We really need to start treating these security screeners more like law enforcement professionals,” she said.

Delays in Applying New Regulations

The GAO was highly critical of the FAA’s delay in implementing new regulations, ordered by Congress, to step up training and testing for airport screeners. FAA officials say the new regulations are set to take effect later this month, giving the agency for the first time federal oversight of private screening contractors, hired by the airlines.

The regulations set 80 hours of training and strict testing requirements for employees operating metal detectors and X-ray equipment at checkpoints. Although the government can’t order contractors to pay employees better, “Through this rule . . . the company will have invested a lot more in its employees, and we believe it will encourage companies to retain their good employees,” FAA spokeswoman Rebecca Trexler said.

The agency is also installing new software on 1,400 X-ray machines across the country that will randomly give screeners an image of a prohibited item to keep them on their toes and measure employee performance.

But former Transportation Secretary Federico Pena said Wednesday that the government might need to go further, possibly considering turning the more than 16,000 airport screeners in the nation into full federal employees.

“We need to recognize, in light of domestic terrorism and the new world in which we live in the [21st] century, that domestic terrorism is a much more heightened issue,” Pena, who served in the Cabinet from 1993 to 1997, said in an interview. “The government has to step up and accept that responsibility, no matter how costly.”

Even expensive new hardware to screen checked baggage, such as the sophisticated X-ray machines capable of detecting explosive chemicals through CAT-scan-like technology, isn’t foolproof. Logan, Newark and Dulles airports all had the equipment available, and it is in place at major airports in the country, FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said.

The problem, security analysts said, is that the equipment is not used on every bag.

Alexis Stefani, assistant inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, told a Senate subcommittee last year that the machines, capable of screening 225 bags or more per hour, were being used to screen fewer than 225 bags per day, on average. Trexler said it will be at least a year before the FAA has the equipment in place at all airports.

Closer Scrutiny of Suspicious Passengers

Private security analysts said the FAA also needs to consider closer scrutiny of suspicious passengers and tougher standards for what is allowed on planes, and what is not.

Although the FAA clamped down Wednesday on allowing small knives on board aircraft--previously, 4-inch blades were permitted--some consultants said knives are not the only sharp, and potentially dangerous, objects allowed on board.

“Knives are . . . usually detected. But it depends. You have sharp objects in your toilet case, my bet is, when you go traveling. Do they stop you for that? No. It’s a tough one, and I think that’s one of the things that everybody, including the FAA, is taking a good look at today,” said James McNulty, executive vice president of Securitas, a Swedish security firm, in Chicago.

While airlines can employ sophisticated X-rays on checked baggage for passengers meeting a certain profile, airlines might have to step up their individual security checks, pulling aside and questioning passengers who do not fit the normal frequent traveler profile, Boim said.

They might need to get used to the kind of questioning El Al passengers frequently undergo in Tel Aviv, for example: Why did you pay cash for your ticket? Why are you going to visit that particular city? What were you doing in the last city you visited?

These are not, he admitted, the kinds of questions to which American travelers are accustomed.

“We need to take it from the beginning and dramatically upgrade our checkpoints, and those checkpoints have to be conducted by professional security staff,” he said. “But one checkpoint cannot prevent a catastrophe like what happened yesterday from happening.”

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Times staff writers Nancy Cleeland, Judy Pasternak, David Willman, Tim Reiterman, Russell Carollo and Ray F. Herndon, and researchers Lynn Marshall, Rob Patrick and Janet Lundblad contributed to this story.