"Airport Security to Weigh Risks Before Ordering Evacuations"

Tuesday, July 2, 2002                         
 
Airport Security to Weigh Risks Before Ordering Evacuations
Agency Orders More Discretion By Security Officials at Airports
By STEPHEN POWER 
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, faced with airport screeners who
continue to have trouble detecting weapons and with criticism from
airlines over its rigid security policies, has told airport-security
personnel to be more cautious in deciding whether to evacuate airports
and recall aircraft when security breaches are suspected.

In a directive issued May 23, the Transportation Security Administration
instructs its interim security representatives to consult airline
personnel before recalling aircraft after a security breach. If it is
"not feasible" to recall aircraft carrying passengers who weren't
properly screened for weapons, security personnel should radio the
pilots and notify destination airports so the passengers can be
rescreened immediately upon arrival, the agency says.

At some airports , federal security personnel have ordered planes to
return immediately when it was learned a passenger aboard hadn't been
properly checked.
 
The new directive also instructs the agency's interim security
representatives -- by law, all the positions eventually must be filled
with TSA appointees -- to refrain from routinely evacuating concourses
whenever a weapon or other prohibited item is found unattended.

Instead, the agency directs the representatives to consult local
law-enforcement officials and senior TSA managers, and to make a
judgment based on "the nature of the prohibited article and the threat
it presents."

At some airports , the agency has immediately required the evacuation of
concourses because of items that turned out to be harmless -- including
clearing 1,000 travelers from New Orleans International Airport in
February after the discovery of a suspicious package that turned out to
be gumbo.

"Not every incident requires the evacuation of a concourse or the
rescreening of passengers," the directive says. "That one-size-fits-all
approach will not work in an aviation system that enplanes nearly
500,000 passengers a day without grinding it to a halt."

The new guidelines come as airline officials have grown more bold in
criticizing the fledgling agency, which was set up by Congress in the
wake of the Sept. 11 attacks to take over responsibility for airline
security from the FAA and the carriers.

AMR Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Donald Carty drew heavy applause
at a luncheon of the American Association of Airport Executives recently
when he called on the government to scale back the random searches of
passengers at boarding gates, a practice he called "nuts and needlessly
expensive."

Although the TSA directive notes that "passengers are returning and
airports are bustling," a spokesman for the Transportation Department,
which oversees the TSA, said the new guidelines amount to a refinement
of existing policies, rather than a watering down of the
"zero-tolerance" approach announced by Transportation Secretary Norman
Mineta last fall.

Meanwhile, the agency continues to find problems at the checkpoints.

A recent survey by the agency of 32 major airports found that fake guns,
bombs and other weapons got past security screeners almost one-fourth of
the time, administration officials said. One TSA official downplayed the
results, saying the tests were incomplete.

The agency is trying to replace the current crop of privately employed
airport screeners with its own federal work force by Nov. 19, as the new
aviation-security law calls for.

So far, only one U.S. airport , Baltimore-Washington International, has
an all-federal screening work force.


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