"Russian airport fails bomb test"

Friday, November 12, 2004

Russian airport fails bomb test
Agence France-Presse


MOSCOW, (AFP) - Agents at an airport in the central Russian city of Perm
failed to stop a woman who carried explosives aboard a commercial airliner
after clearing checkpoints using a fake passport issued in Chechnya as part
of an airport security test, a newspaper said Friday.

Airport authorities had been warned in advance by the FSB security service
that such a test would be conducted, but were not told when it would take
place, the daily Kommersant said, quoting an FSB spokeswoman, Marina
Porfireva.

None of the airport's screening measures, including a metal detector, an
X-ray baggage scanner and a sniffer dog, managed to prevent the woman,
herself an FSB agent, from boarding the plane scheduled to fly to Moscow,
the report said, providing no further explanation.

In addition, the passport control officer failed to verify the validity of
the false document the woman was carrying, it added.

Russian authorities vowed to boost security at the country's airports after
two commercial airliners were brought down simultaneously in different parts
of the country last August by explosions set off by suicide bombers who
smuggled explosives aboard the planes.

The airplane attacks were just one in a string of major attacks in Russia
that also included a suicide bombing outside a crowded Moscow metro station
and that culminated in a school hostage taking that left hundreds dead, half
of them children.


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************