"Screener says detectors do not spot small knives"

Wednesday, September 26, 2001
 
Screener says detectors do not spot small knives
By Seth Borenstein 
THE PHILADELPHIA (PA) INQUIRER


WASHINGTON - The nation's largest airport security company said its
metal detectors cannot spot the small knives that federal authorities
banned from planes after the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings.

The company, Argenbright Security Inc. of Atlanta, provides 40 percent
of all the passenger screening at the nation's airports. The company has
urged federal officials to consider pat-downs for most airline
passengers to check for banned items.

A spokesman for Argenbright's parent company in Britain, Securicor
P.L.C., said yesterday the Federal Aviation Administration was seriously
considering the idea.

Meanwhile, President Bush and congressional leaders are looking at
putting more armed marshals on airliners to make travelers more
confident that they will be safe from terrorists.

Bush also is planning to make airlines secure doors between the cockpit
and cabin on all jetliners, but is not inclined to allow pilots to carry
weapons or make federal workers of all security personnel at airports,
administration officials said yesterday. 

Instead, Bush will seek to give the FAA more oversight of private
security companies, the officials said, speaking on condition of
anonymity. In addition, he will order a more robust effort to
cross-check information on their personnel with law enforcement
databases. 

The President plans to announce his airline safety proposals tomorrow in
Chicago, an official said. U.S. marshals already are being used on many
flights, and the FAA is training more of them. Other federal agencies
are being asked to contribute armed plainclothes security officials.
Many of the new officers will come from the Justice Department. 

"We need more marshals, or military police, or whatever we need to do to
make sure the rest of the passengers are safe," House Minority Leader
Richard A. Gephardt (D., Mo.) said after meeting with Bush at the White
House.

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta briefed Bush on a range of
options yesterday, including adding the armed guards and means of
securing cockpit doors to keep hijackers out. 

Mineta's plan calls for short- and long-term solutions to the cockpit
issue. In the near term, officials want to better secure the current
cockpit doors. Eventually, the plan envisions requiring that airlines be
equipped with two sets of doors, separated by a walk-in chamber, that
cannot be opened at the same time. 

The Air Line Pilots Association's call to allow pilots to carry firearms
in cockpits was received with mixed reactions on Capitol Hill. The FAA
prohibits pilots from being armed. 

"I don't think we need pilots to be trying to be security officers and
pilots," Gephardt said. "I think they have enough to get the plane to
safety." 

House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R., Texas) said he would "have more of
an affinity for" arming pilots with stun guns, but added that he was
keeping an open mind on the issue. 

Duane Woerth, president of the pilots' union, said armed pilots would be
equipped with bullets that "disintegrate on impact" and would not be a
danger to the aircraft. He said pilots would get the same training in
the use of firearms that armed sky marshals get, and would undergo
extensive background checking and psychological testing. 

Officials for the pilots' and flight attendants' unions said they wanted
new curbs on carry-on baggage.

About 1.3 billion people are screened annually at airport security
points. Most of it is done by low-paid workers of private companies
contracted by airlines.

John M. Meenan, senior vice president of the airline industry's Air
Transport Association, told the committee that the time had come to
place airport security under federal control. 

"We have seen we don't have the capacity to deal with terrorism. Only
the federal government does," Meenan said. 

FAA spokesman Hank Price said the agency had made no decisions nor
issued any rules, but was reviewing all options.

As for Argenbright's assertion about the inability of its metal
detectors to spot small knives, Rebecca Trexler, a spokeswoman for the
FAA's security office, said the office was aware of the situation, but
noted that backups were in place. Even if the large metal detectors fail
to uncover knives when passengers walk through, screeners can still
detect anything metal with handheld wands.

She said she could not say whether screeners would consistently use
handheld detectors.

Argenbright is one of the private companies that provide security checks
at Philadelphia International Airport.

Until the Sept. 11 airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, knives less than four inches long were allowed on planes. The
FAA banned all knives the day after the attacks. Investigators believe
small knives and box cutters were used to hijack four jets and turn them
into flying bombs. 

Mike Rutter, a director of Securicor, said Argenbright discovered the
problem with metal detectors when it ran tests immediately after the
FAA's order to ban knives. 

"We cannot pick them up on common calibration," he said, referring to
the normal settings for walk-through metal detectors. 

Security experts said the detectors could be adjusted to be more
sensitive to metal, but that could create more false alarms and delays.

Rutter said the Argenbright officials, who have met with the FAA, were
led to believe that the FAA would soon issue guidelines on hand searches
of passengers.

Experts differ on what can slip through metal detectors.

"For every single instrument that's designed for the airport, there is
always a lower limit of detectability," said Tom Hartwick, chairman of
several National Academy of Sciences studies of airport security
technology.

Hartwick said a lot depended on the training of operators and machine
settings. 

"The wand is quite effective," said Jack Crow, a physicist and director
of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Fla.
"That is going to pick up anything as small as a penny."

But he said some small metal might get through the overhead metal
detectors, depending on calibration. More important, readily available
non-metal ceramic knives can pass through metal detectors, he said.

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