"Slow Screening Procedures Endanger Airport"

Saturday, September 25, 2004

Slow Screening Procedures Endanger Airport
By Jennifer Oldham
The Los Angeles (CA) Times


LOS ANGELES - Stepped-up screening procedures at Los Angeles International
Airport that were designed to make flying safer have led to long lines in
terminal lobbies and on sidewalks that are a "tempting target for
terrorists," security experts said Friday.

Rand Corp. researchers recommended in a 47-page report that airlines and
federal officials spend $4 million a year to add sky caps, ticket agents and
screeners to speed travelers through lines and into the secure gate area --
where they are less vulnerable to attack.

"We think this should happen right away," said Donald Stevens, a senior
engineer at Santa Monica-based Rand and the lead author on the highly
anticipated study.

The wide-ranging report -- which considered the potential casualties from
car bombs, mortars, snipers and surface-to-air-missile attacks -- is the
first public blueprint of the airport's greatest vulnerabilities and the
most cost-effective methods to fix them.

LAX, the world's fifth-busiest airport, is considered California's No. 1
terrorist target. An al-Qaida plot to explode several luggage bombs in
terminals was foiled in December 1999.

The Rand report also recommends building permanent checkpoints at airport
entrances to search vehicles for bombs, screening cargo for explosives, and
conducting background checks on all airport personnel.

Mayor James K. Hahn ordered the report in May after City Council members
threatened to hire a firm on their own to conduct a security analysis of his
$9 billion modernization plan for LAX.

The mayor said Friday that the Rand report wasn't supposed to study his
proposal, but was intended to identify the airport's current
vulnerabilities.

In a briefing Friday afternoon at City Hall, Hahn stopped short of calling
for the immediate implementation of Rand's proposals.

"If we can figure out ways to eliminate long lines, then we should do that
quickly," Hahn said, adding that the money would need to come from the
airlines and the federal government. "We're going to need help." Critics of
Hahn's controversial LAX plan, which he has billed as the "safety and
security alternative," urged the mayor to act now.

"There's no good reason not to implement this immediately," said Councilman
Jack Weiss. "It's very hard to discern an outline of the mayor's plan in the
Rand report."

Weiss and Hahn have been at loggerheads over how to best fortify LAX. When
the councilman, who was an uninvited guest at the briefing, tried to speak
to reporters, the mayor cut him off and said he wanted Rand representatives
to give their presentation. Weiss proceeded, over the mayor's objections, to
make a statement.

The city's airport agency has spent $102 million from Sept. 11, 2001 through
June 30 to improve security at LAX. Ongoing projects include a $413 million
initiative to rebuild the facility's aging baggage system, a $57 million
project to reinforce perimeter fencing and a $42 million effort to expand a
camera surveillance system.

One of the most persistent problems at LAX involves lines in terminal
lobbies and at security checkpoints.

Under new federal security rules, officials can process only half as many
passengers an hour through airport checkpoints as they did before the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks. Queues also snake outside the terminals because
truck-sized explosives detection machines eat up valuable space in airport
lobbies.

The Rand report found that if airlines and the Transportation Security
Administration, which manages screeners at the nation's airports, hired 5
percent more personnel at LAX they could reduce lines at the facility's nine
terminals by 80 percent.

"A luggage bomb in either the skycap line or the check-in line will cause a
significant number of fatalities and injuries," the report said. "These
bombs could be coordinated with other bombs in other terminals, increasing
the number of fatalities."

The report notes that this was Ahmed Ressam's plan. Ressam was arrested in
December 1999 by customs agents at a Port Angeles, Wash., border crossing
after they found explosives in his trunk. He was subsequently convicted of
plotting with al-Qaida to bomb LAX.

Increasing staffing by one ticket counter station per terminal would reduce
average line length from 75 people to 15, researchers found. Similarly,
adding one more skycap station would reduce the average line length from 70
people to three, according to the report.

But getting help from the cash-strapped airlines, who have cut staff 16
percent across the board since the terrorist attacks, and the federal
Transportation Security Administration, which had the number of screeners it
can employ capped by Congress last year, is likely to be difficult.

"If future passenger levels at LAX call for more screeners, we will work to
that end," said Nico Melendez, a Transportation Security Administration
spokesman. "Right now, it's inappropriate to guess what the levels will be
in two, four, or six years."

After researching 11 "attack options," Rand concluded that LAX is most
vulnerable to attacks using bombs planted in a vehicle, a piece of luggage,
or in cargo in the belly of an airplane.

The specifics of the attack scenarios, such as where terrorists could hide a
luggage bomb to inflict the most casualties, were considered so sensitive
that the Transportation Security Administration ordered Rand to redact them
from the public version of the report. Researchers also removed the number
of fatalities they concluded could result from each scenario, saying it was
too "gruesome" to leave in.

In addition to dispersing crowds in terminals, the city could also protect
LAX by spending $7 million to install permanent vehicle checkpoints and $11
million a year to operate them at five airport entrances, the report found.
These stations could feature "simple vehicle scales that can identify
suspicious vehicles."

The mayor said he supports this idea, adding that he's always wanted to move
vehicles farther away from airport terminals. "We have to look at a way we
can do that without creating traffic gridlock," he said.


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