‘72 FAA Policy Permitted Pocketknives

The Federal Aviation Administration forbids “deadly” or “dangerous” articles in airline cabins, but until this week’s devastating hijackings, knives with blades less than 4 inches long were considered neither.

The 4-inch rule dates back to 1972, when the FAA first ordered airlines to screen passengers for weapons to thwart a worldwide wave of hijackings, said agency spokeswoman Rebecca Trexler.

Under tougher local standards permitted by the FAA, blades were limited to 3 inches at Los Angeles International Airport.

The federal policy stood for three decades, even as other agencies tightened standards on pocketknives. Federal courts, for example, prohibit them altogether. So do some foreign airlines, such as Israel’s El Al.

Yet in the volumes of critical reports written about U.S. aviation security, knives have not been a major concern--until now.

“We’ve allowed knives on airplanes since the beginning,” said Douglas Laird, a former security chief for Northwest Airlines and a 20-year Secret Service veteran. “It is part of our culture. A large percentage of adult males carry some sort of little pocketknife--you can use it as a tool.”

It remains unclear how the hijackers got their knives and box cutters aboard the aircraft. Among the possibilities: the weapons may have been planted ahead of time by accomplices; the hijackers may have bypassed security checkpoints; or they may have cleared security because their knives were not deemed threatening.

But if it turns out that the weapons used in the deadliest hijackings in history were walked through security, the FAA is likely to face a barrage of criticism.

Within the last year, the congressional General Accounting Office had begun looking into the issue, after discovering half a dozen or so reports of unruly passengers carrying knives.

“The allowance for knives . . . was always a puzzle to me,” said Gerald Dillingham, head of aviation matters for the GAO, the investigative agency of Congress. “I couldn’t find an explanation of why 4 inches was acceptable. I’m still trying to find it.”

This week, the FAA belatedly prohibited carrying any “cutting instrument” onto an airplane.

The GAO stumbled upon the problem while investigating cases of law enforcement officers--who are allowed to carry loaded weapons aboard airliners--forgetting their guns in lavatories and seats. Examining reports of security problems filed anonymously by airline personnel, GAO investigators also saw a problem with knives.

Among the incidents:

* A drunken male passenger, distraught over marital problems, took out a knife and placed it on his food tray. A flight attendant went to complain to the captain about the man’s demands for more alcohol. The passenger followed the flight attendant into the cockpit, carrying the knife. He sat down in the jump seat behind the flight deck and poured out his troubles to the pilots. Since the man did not threaten anyone with the knife, the captain did not report the incident to police.

* In December 1996, an Algerian man assaulted a female passenger. He was subdued and handcuffed on the floor of the galley. When his seat was searched, a straight-blade knife wrapped in a towel was found. The captain thought the man’s aim might have been to hijack the aircraft.

* In 1995, a woman carrying a set of cooking knives with blades much longer than 4 inches boarded an airliner. A reservation agent had apparently told the woman she could carry the knives if she checked them with the crew during the flight. She used that explanation to get the knives past security. Once aboard the aircraft, however, she did not turn them over to the crew. A flight attendant saw them and told the captain. The captain questioned the woman and reported the incident as a security breach.

The incident reports do not include flight numbers, airlines or other identifying details so as to encourage personnel to report potential problems.

The GAO’s Dillingham said his investigators questioned FAA about the policy on knives and were told that it has remained in place because pilots like to carry knives for emergencies, to pry open a lavatory door or cut a seat belt if someone is trapped in a crash.

That did not change his mind.

“Why would somebody allow a knife that big on an airplane? Why?” Dillingham asked.

FAA spokeswoman Trexler said she does not know the rationale for the policy or whether a written explanation for it exists.

“It is so old,” she said. “There wasn’t a lot of written material back then. It’s archived.”

She noted that GAO has not formally criticized the policy. “We don’t know the circumstances of what happened [aboard the hijacked airplanes],” Trexler said. “We will just have to wait to see, which doesn’t change the fact that knives are now completely banned.”

*

Times staff writer Nancy Cleeland contributed to this story.