8 LAX Workers’ Badges Seized

The city agency that operates Los Angeles International Airport has confiscated badges from eight employees with access to airplanes and other security-sensitive areas after it found that the workers have previous criminal convictions.

The airport employees, who worked as fuelers and baggage handlers and in facilities maintenance and administrative offices, have logged 18 months to more than 10 years of service at the world’s third-busiest airport. The majority of them have criminal histories involving gun possession or drug-related convictions, airport officials said.

The discovery is part of a nationwide push by airports to complete criminal background checks on more than 750,000 employees by Dec. 6 to comply with the aviation security law Congress approved in November.

Airport officials nationwide checked the records of 111,000 employees from Jan. 1 to March 1, compared with 170,000 checks completed in all of 2001, said Rebecca Trexler, a spokeswoman for the federal Transportation Security Administration.

The checks are separate from arrests or indictments made at about 15 airports this year by federal law enforcement officials as part of an investigation known as Operation Tarmac.

Under the aviation security law, airports must revoke high-security clearances for employees if they have been convicted of one of 37 crimes within the past 10 years, including murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery, extortion and aircraft piracy.

Since early March, officials at LAX have sent 18,000 employees’ fingerprints to the FBI for comparison with its criminal databases. Of that group, the airport agency revoked security clearances for eight employees who had criminal convictions. All eight had lied about their records on their applications, officials said.

Their cases were referred by airport officials to the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration. Questionable applications filed by about 15 additional employees at LAX are being investigated during a 45-day review period.

“The number of employees disqualified by the newly authorized criminal background checks is extremely low, and we’re heartened,” said Paul Haney, an airport spokesman. “At the same time, we strongly believe that one employee identified with a disqualifying crime is too many.”

By comparison, officials at San Francisco International Airport have revoked high-security clearances for 40 employees with criminal convictions out of 7,905 employees fingerprinted so far under the new law, said Ron Wilson, an airport spokesman. The airport is about halfway through its background checks.

“We anticipated that around 1% would be questionable,” Wilson said. “So we’re under that. As different groups come in we have different percentages.”

About 14,000 employees at LAX with access to secure areas are still to undergo criminal background checks. It will cost the airport agency $3.5 million to fingerprint and re-badge the 32,000 employees who fall under the new aviation security law. Those employees work for about 700 companies that provide services at LAX, including the airlines.

There are also 20,000 or so employees who do business at LAX who will not undergo criminal background checks because they don’t have access to security-sensitive areas. This includes people in concessions, parking lot attendants and taxi and shuttle drivers.

Many LAX employees aren’t required to complete the new checks because they have already complied under a December 2000 federal law requiring criminal checks of all new hires.

The government’s nationwide airport-badge identification system was prompted by an LAX security breach that led to a fatal airplane crash in December 1987. A disgruntled airline employee used his company ID to skirt a security checkpoint and board an airplane while carrying a gun. Then he shot and killed his boss and both pilots, causing the plane to crash near San Luis Obispo. All 44 passengers on board were killed. The USAir employee, David Burke, had been fired that day for stealing $68 from a drink fund set up by flight attendants.

In addition to employee background checks being conducted at the nation’s airports, federal law enforcement officials have arrested or indicted more than 450 workers at 15 airports as part of Operation Tarmac.

Those workers were arrested on charges such as using phony Social Security numbers, lying about past criminal convictions or being in the U.S. illegally. Some could face prison terms of up to 10 years, and the illegal immigrants could be deported.

Employees were arrested at airports in Washington, Baltimore, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento and Las Vegas, among others.