Overseas flights leave U.S. vulnerable

www.sun-sentinel.com By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Posted February 19 2003

WASHINGTON -- Billions in taxpayer dollars and swarms of federal screeners have made U.S. airports harder for terrorists to hit, but passenger jets bound for America remain vulnerable overseas because of gaps in global security, industry and government officials say.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of examples of gaping holes in foreign security," said Capt. Steve Luckey, security chairman for the Air Line Pilots Assn. "There is nothing out there to negate a recurrence of 9/11, provided [terrorists] do it at the end of the flight instead of the beginning."

The concerns are intensifying as a possible war with Iraq looms closer. They increased earlier this month when the government, citing specific threats against U.S. targets here or overseas, elevated the nation's terrorism alert system to its second-highest level.

Perfunctory passenger screening at U.S. airports has been replaced by close inspection under the federal Transportation Security Administration. One unintended result may be to displace the threat, making it more tempting to attack American aviation at less secure airports overseas.

"It is much easier for terrorists to plan and to move around overseas," said Cathal Flynn, who headed the Federal Aviation Administration's security branch during much of the 1990s. "These guys will go wherever they see a weakness, so every place in the world has to be considered high threat."

Under international agreements, all nations must provide basic screening of passengers and luggage. In practice, there is no uniform level of security. European countries, Canada and Japan have beefed up airport security since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Yet many poorer countries cannot afford to do it.

In Asia, Japan's added countermeasures are offset by spotty progress among Southeast Asian countries, said an airline pilot who is based in Southern California and regularly flies Pacific Rim routes.

"We do have a concern," the pilot said, speaking on condition of anonymity, "because it seems that Manila, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur -- those are some of the main route structures that all these terrorists use."

Such concerns are legitimate, said James Loy, who heads the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. "Security has become a new issue to be carried to the international organizations," Loy said in a recent interview. "We are trying to persuade other countries to become part of the solution."

One way to frustrate the government's $6.6-billion investment in protecting American air passengers is to strike beyond the reach of the U.S. security agency. An attack "is more likely to happen somewhere where TSA isn't located," said a Transportation Department official. "The challenge is keeping complacency from setting in."

The last known terrorist attempt against a U.S. airliner began on French soil. Richard Reid boarded a Paris-to-Miami flight on Dec. 22, 2001, waited until the plane was over the Atlantic, then tried to light explosives in his shoes. Last month, he was sentenced to three life terms.

The Reid incident brought a quick response in the United States as authorities deployed advanced equipment at airport checkpoints so screeners could test for explosives residue on passengers' shoes. But relatively few overseas airports have the $45,000 detection units, even though Reid's plot originated abroad.

"We need to get more equipment abroad to do screening," Flynn said. "We have deployed thousands of Trace detectors in the United States, but they have not been deployed to U.S. air carrier stations overseas, except in a few instances."

For travelers grown accustomed to stricter U.S. security, an encounter with lower standards overseas can be unsettling.

"There was no working metal detector, there was no working anything," said a California woman who flew back to Atlanta from Montego Bay, Jamaica, last month on Delta Airlines. "It was a mess. It was a horrible mess."

As she arrived to board Flight 682, the woman said security at the Jamaican airport appeared to simply break down. "It was packed with people, and there was no luggage moving through the X-ray monitors," said the woman, who asked not to be identified because of concerns for her job.

Jamaican security officials began to let passengers through, she said, although some were stopped at random and asked to open their bags for a visual check. If they refused, they were allowed to continue nonetheless.

"People were not screened, that was the thing that was so amazing to me," said the woman. "The plane was coming right into our borders, bringing passengers from God knows where, and they were not checked."

At U.S. airports, all passengers entering a departure concourse must pass through metal detectors and put their carry-on items through X-ray machines. If one person tries to circumvent a security checkpoint, it can lead to the whole terminal being emptied out or "dumped" for re-checking.

Delta Flight 682 arrived safely in Atlanta. "Nothing happened," said the woman who took the flight, "but the fact is there was every opportunity for something to happen."

Delta does not comment on security matters, said spokesman Anthony Black. "We don't control security in Montego Bay," he added.

In another example of apparent lax security abroad, British authorities last week detained a 37-year-old Venezuelan man at Gatwick Airport in London after finding a grenade in his baggage upon his arrival on a British Airways flight from Caracas, Venezuela.

The man, who identified himself as Hasil Mohammed Rahaham-Alan, was charged with possession of an explosive, possession of an article for terrorist purposes and carrying a dangerous item on a flight. He remains in custody.

Gatwick's north terminal was closed for hours after the grenade was found, and flights at the terminal were suspended until police determined there was no further threat.

For terrorists who operate globally, many countries can be used as staging areas for an attack. "Although the Caribbean is not a high-risk place historically from a terrorist perspective, it doesn't have a lot of good security and it is close to home," said Luckey, the pilots union official.

U.S. airlines could copy El Al's strategy and provide their own security abroad, said Flynn, the former FAA security chief. In Los Angeles on July 4, it was El Al security agents who tackled and shot an Egyptian immigrant who opened fire on the airline's ticket counter, killing two people before he was fatally wounded.

American carriers do have additional security of their own, say industry officials, especially on the busiest international routes. At some airports, the airlines employ their own guards to check passengers after they clear local security. But the financially struggling airlines cannot afford to deliver a consistently high level of protection at all departure points.

Among the standard precautions that U.S. carriers provide are reinforced cockpit doors and checks to ensure that no luggage is loaded into the cargo hold unless the passenger has also boarded the flight. Names of international passengers are screened against "watch lists" of people with terrorist links.

If war breaks out, many Americans are likely to stay home. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, travel to Europe and Asia plunged. International bookings fell for the first time since the end of World War II.

International standards for airport security are set by a U.N. agency, the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization. With 188 members, it includes every nation in the world. The organization is well aware that the territory of any of its members could become the gateway for an attack.

"Like a chain, the aviation system is only as strong as its weakest link," organization President Assad Kotaite wrote this month in an industry publication. "A potential perpetrator will always try to exploit that weakest link, [although] his target may be halfway around the world."

But compliance with international security standards is entirely voluntary.

"What we do is bring all the member countries together and design security programs," spokesman Denis Chagnon said. "We don't track them, so I really can't comment on the level of security in any one country."

Such international agreements "aren't worth the paper they're written on," Luckey said. "There has to be some vehicle to back up the intent. If some countries can't afford to buy the technology, then we have to look at how much we can afford to subsidize foreign countries."

In the past, the FAA inspected high-risk foreign airports, a responsibility that now rests with the new U.S. security agency. The U.S. has several ways to pressure foreign governments, from publicizing their security problems to banning flights by American carriers to problem airports.

Loy said his power to influence his overseas counterparts is limited. "This is not our national turf," he said. But Flynn said the Transportation Security Administration has to begin to broaden its focus beyond the 429 commercial airports in the U.S. "There is a huge American responsibility here," he said. "The turf of other countries should have nothing to do with it if there is any concern about the security of flights."