"Portugal to boost airport security after knife taken on plane"

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Portugal to boost airport security after knife taken on plane
Agence France-Presse


LISBON, (AFP) - Security guards at Portugal's southern Faro airport will
get extra training after a woman carried a 22-centimeter (nine-inch)
knife on a flight to Britain over the weekend, the airport's director
said Wednesday.

The 43-year-old woman told the BBC Tuesday she had passed through X-ray
machines and metal detectors with the bread knife in her hand luggage at
Faro airport and flew with it to Exeter airport.

Helen Mallon, who was returning to England Sunday after a week-long
holiday in Portugal, said she only remembered she had the knife after
she went through the security checks.

"They say it is high security these days but it is obviously not as high
as we imagine," she said. "Thank God I am not a terrorist."

Faro airport director Antonio Mendes told national news agency Lusa the
six security guards who were carrying out baggage checks at the time of
Mallon's flight would get the extra training.

He said some objects were hard to detect, adding "mistakes like these
happen".

The airport at Faro, the capital of Portugal's southernmost province of
Algarve, one of Europe's top tourist destinantions, is the nation's
third-busiest in terms of passenger traffic.


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