"Air security: Why you're not as safe as you think"

February , 2008 Issue

 

Air security

Why you're not as safe as you think

Consumer Reports

 

Carry-Ons: Passengers are allowed to board airplanes with cigarette lighters, tools, and scissors that federal investigators say could be used as weapons.

One Sunday evening last March, a baggage handler was loading up an Airbus jet when he noticed that a passenger's bag was burning.

Officials halted the flight, found the passenger, and told him they were taking all of his baggage off the plane for re-screening before the flight could continue, the captain said in a report to federal aviation officials.

In the burnt bag, authorities discovered a suspicious bundle of wires and a video game battery pack. The captain, meanwhile, thought the passenger's behavior was suspect. He had a one-way ticket, volunteered to be removed from the flight without being asked, and said he would fly another day.

"Had we left the gate on time, we would have been airborne when this bag ignited," the report noted.

The captain complained in his filing with the federal Aviation Safety Reporting System that there was no security follow-up although many questions remained: "Who was this individual? Were his actions intentional? Why was his behavior so abnormal?"

Despite an extensive security effort since the 2001 terrorist attacks, those kinds of questions are still being asked with alarming frequency at U.S. airports.

Many steps have indeed been taken, including creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), to improve security at the nation's 400 commercial airports and at all airlines.

          "The clock is ticking."

               David Mackett, pilot

But six years later, the TSA still falls short in 7 of 24, or almost one-third, of critical performance benchmarks set for the agency, an August 2007 federal report says. The shortfalls included securing areas of airports that are supposed to be restricted and adequate screening of air cargo, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government's audit agency.

Some of those problems were cited in a March 2007 Consumer Reports investigation, An accident waiting to happen?, which found that increased outsourcing by airlines had created safety and security loopholes. Now, even for some areas in which the TSA has supposedly met its goals, Consumer Reports has found major security lapses, including the following:

Screening failures. The TSA has an erratic record at checkpoint screening, including failures during undercover tests to identify weapons and explosives. A November 2007 GAO report found that agents smuggled bomb-making material past checkpoints in several instances.

Questionable rules. The TSA has issued 25 versions of screening procedures over the years, and there's still confusion about bringing liquids and gels aboard. It also allows items such as lighters, tools, corkscrews, and pointed scissors that could be used as weapons, just as box cutters were used in some of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Insecure cockpits. In easing the rules, the TSA pointed to other security measures, such as strengthening cockpit doors to deter hijackings. But Consumer Reports documented dozens of problems with those barriers, including doors popping open in flight, pilots being locked out, and flight attendants breaking the doors by slamming them shut.

Thin security forces. The government has tried to plug security holes in part by authorizing more flight crew members to carry guns. But the effort has lagged because of cumbersome training arrangements. And deployment of armed air marshals is hurt by staffing and morale problems, say several current and former marshals. Air marshals also complain that their reports of suspicious activity often seem to be ignored.

Although there has not been a successful terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11, dozens of security officials and others on the front lines say the security lapses make it easier for one to take place.

"The clock is ticking," says David Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance. "There's a term we are using in the airline industry: We are being ridden," he says of terrorists or their supporters whom he believes are continually riding planes and testing the system. "They're not wannabes. In some way, they're assisting Al Qaeda. People ask me, 'Will there be another 9/11?' I think there will be more 9/11s."

Clark Kent Ervin, inspector general for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2003 through 2004, says: "Al Qaeda is back in business. They're intent and they have this fixation on aviation."

Ervin's office criticized the TSA's oversight of security and its spending. He says it would be "very, very hard" for terrorists to commit an act similar to 9/11, but also says: "We Americans tend to fight the last war. I don't think we're much farther along, to tell you the truth."

Not everyone is so pessimistic. "We are significantly safer now than on Sept. 10, 2001," says Bob Hesselbein, chair of the National Security Committee for the Air Line Pilots Association, the nation's largest pilots' union. "Does that mean we're content? No. But we're in a much better place."

TSA spokesman Darrin Kayser says, "TSA has made significant strides in testing and deploying the latest technologies to better detect explosives and other potential threat items."

If outer defenses falter, federal auditors note, the authorities are counting on "able-bodied passengers"

A 'facade of security'

              Clark Kent Ervin

Former DHS Inspector General is concerned at how poorly screeners are doing.

Before 9/11, airline security was largely delegated to airlines and airports, which hired private firms.

Congress created the TSA in November 2001 to secure all modes of transportation, starting with aviation. The agency hired more than 50,000 people to screen passengers and luggage. But Kimberly Kraynak, a lead TSA officer in Pittsburgh and women's coordinator for TSA Local 1 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents officers, says employees do not receive proper training at some airports. "We've been short-staffed since the beginning," she says.

Larry Tortorich, a TSA training officer and former representative to the Joint Terrorism Task Force who retired in 2006, also says he saw problems from the inside. "There was a facade of security. There were numerous security flaws and vulnerabilities that I identified. The response was, it wasn't apparent to the public, so there would not be any corrective action."

An internal e-mail obtained by Consumer Reports suggests that the TSA might be stacking the deck to try to perform better on covert tests. In April 2006 the TSA's Office of Security Operations sent a memo to numerous security personnel titled "Notice of Possible Security Test." It warned that airport security was being tested by the Department of Transportation in several airports and even gave some clues: The testing couple included a woman who had "an ID with an Oriental woman's picture, even though she is Caucasian. We are getting the word out."

"I continue to be concerned at how poorly screeners are doing on undercover testing," says Ervin, the former inspector general. "The results continue to be dismal."

The TSA has also been the subject of reports of mismanagement. For example, a federal report in 2005 found that a private firm used to hire screeners for the TSA had estimated its fee at $104 million but was paid $741 million, including $1.7 million for the use of a Telluride, Colo., ski resort for recruiting.

Screeners also report that equipment that could help security remains locked up at some airports. "We've wasted millions on machines we're not using," says Don Thomas, a TSA officer in Orlando, Fla., and president of TSA Local 1.

In its annual report card for the TSA last April, the House Committee on Homeland Security gave the agency a C for aviation security and an F for employee morale, a factor contributing to high staff turnover.

Responding to the criticism, Kip Hawley, the TSA's administrator, told Congress in November, "Our workforce is fully engaged."  He said that reforms in the agency's personnel system have been aimed at improving staffing issues.

Questionable carry-ons

After an alleged terrorist plot that aimed to use liquid and gel explosives on London-to-U.S. flights was disrupted in 2006, the TSA issued conflicting bans on carrying those items aboard.

In short order, rules changed from a ban on liquids and gels to allowing small containers in clear plastic quart-sized bags. Then came approval for larger items bought in shops past checkpoints.

Ervin says airport vendors applied pressure to have the liquids ban modified. "Are the amounts of liquids dangerous? Either it's true or it's not," he says. "Why is it OK to buy them past the checkpoint now?"

Bogdan Dzakovic, a TSA officer and former Federal Aviation Administration undercover leader, says the emergence of liquid explosives was inevitable because of the TSA's focus on detecting powdered nitrate-based bombs. He says the TSA had been public about its trace-detection and checked-baggage machines, so terror groups "turned to gel-based explosives."

Exploiting loopholes in the liquid/gel rules, undercover investigators smuggled components for several explosive devices and an incendiary device through TSA checkpoints and onto airline flights without being challenged, according to the November 2007 federal audit report. One agent even deliberately provoked a second screening but was able to smuggle the items through anyway.

In another symptom of confusion, an April 2007 GAO report says the TSA allowed pointed scissors with blades 4 inches long and tools as long as 7 inches back on planes in December 2005 without having any justification for doing so. Cigarette lighters were allowed back onboard in August 2007, with the TSA saying that they no longer pose a significant threat.

While the TSA said that would free up time for other screening, some aviation experts consulted by the GAO for the report said, "Permitting scissors increases the risk of violence against passengers and flight crew."

'Secured' doors broken

One of the most visible elements of the new security effort was the requirement that reinforced doors be installed. By March 2002, the FAA reported that all major U.S. airlines had complied. Critics, however, say a stronger door is only half the solution. "People have this illusion hardened cockpit doors work, and they don't," Dzakovic says. "If you want to have a secure door, you need to have a double-hulled door."

Consumer Reports searched NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System and found 51 incidents since April 2002 in which flight crews reported problems with the hardened doors.

In many instances, the door unexpectedly opened in flight or the locking mechanisms failed. In one case, the door spontaneously opened twice on a Bombardier CRJ200 regional jet, interrupting a takeoff. And a captain said the doors on two DC9s were broken after flight attendants slammed them.

A 2006 study of aviation security by DFI International, a Washington, D.C., security consultancy, found that a drunken passenger kicked a hole in a door panel and that aircraft cleaners "broke a fortified door off its hinges by running a heavy snack cart into it on a bet."

In October 2007, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., introduced a bill that would require the FAA to order the installation of secondary barriers on commercial airliners, at a cost he estimates at $5,000 to $10,000 per aircraft. "Without secondary cockpit barriers, the door is literally wide open to terrorists," he stated in proposing the measure.

Hesselbein, of the Air Line Pilots Association, agrees, saying "We believe it's the No. 1 thing that can be done for security."

Armed and worried

14.6% Turnover rate for TSA officers

is almost four times the federal average.

As part of the response to the terror threat, the federal air marshal service expanded from 33 to thousands of marshals and was transferred from the FAA to the TSA. But the transition did not go smoothly, according to a 2005 GAO report. Over the next two years the marshal service was transferred two more times, then was sent back again to the TSA.

The service also tried unsuccessfully to develop a "surge" capability with customs and immigration agents trained to work as air marshals when needed. The auditors warn that without changes in career development and advancement, the force could face "a decline in employee morale and an increase in attrition rates."

That has happened, experts say. While the exact number of marshals is classified, a report on the Airline Pilots Security Alliance Web site says,"The current air marshal force, 2,200 officers working in teams, protects only 5 to 10 percent of daily flights, if that." The alliance says that's down from a peak of 4,000.

"Everyone thinks there are enough air marshals on the planes, and there are not," says P. Jeffrey Black, an air marshal and whistle-blower who testified before the House Judiciary Committee in 2004.

An incident onboard a Northwest Airlines flight in June 2004 in which 13 Middle Eastern men in a musical group acted suspiciously prompted an inspector general's probe. The full report, not made public, provides these details:"During the flight, the men again acted suspiciously. Several of the men changed seats, congregated in the aisles, and arose when the fasten seat belt sign was turned on; one passenger moved quickly up the aisle toward the cockpit and, at the last moment, entered the first class lavatory. The passenger remained in the lavatory for about 20 minutes." Another man carried a large McDonald's restaurant bag into a lavatory and made a thumbs-up signal to another man upon returning to his seat.

An FBI check indicated that the musical group's promoter had been involved in a similar incident in January 2004. "No other derogatory information was received, and all 13 of the men were released," the report says, although visas for 12 of the passengers expired weeks before the flight. Twelve of the men had left the country by mid-July; the FBI started its investigation later that month, after another passenger wrote an article about her experience on the flight and appeared on television.

The federal report cited marshals' problems in communicating with the cockpit and confusion over which federal agency had authority.

To complement the air marshals, the government allows crew members to become Federal Flight Deck Officers and to carry guns in the cockpit. But an inspector general's report in 2006 stated "more needs to be accomplished to maximize the use of FFDOs on international and domestic flights." The ranks are thin: Only an estimated 8 to 10 percent of domestic flights have an armed crew member in the cockpit.

Mackett, of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, sees arming pilots as an unobtrusive system that uses current resources. But he says that the TSA is "grudgingly tolerating" the program. He says airlines aren't required to pay for the voluntary training, and some won't provide time off.

Kayser, the TSA spokesman, says "procedures must be followed to maintain the high standards of any law enforcement professional."

While the U.S. has made significant efforts in aviation security since 2001, many experts cite El Al Israel Airlines as the benchmark for aviation security, with double cockpit doors and more extensive passenger and baggage screening.

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, believes the government should close the gaps in security by instituting more effective screening measures, creating a second cockpit barrier, and improving training of TSA officers, and providing more help for federal air marshals and flight crew members.

"It is clear that the TSA continues to struggle with the implementation of fundamental security measures," says Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., of the House Homeland Security Committee. "Congress will need to keep shining a spotlight on TSA operations and provide the resources and training needed for TSA employees to perform their difficult jobs."

Security trouble spots

Concerns stretch from the perimeters to the cockpit, experts say.

Security cards for the fast lane

If you've recently heard ads touting ways to get through airport security more quickly, you might wonder how it works. The Transportation Security Administration has set up a Registered Traveler program, under which private firms run a thorough background check and use biometrics such as fingerprints and iris scans. There are six approved programs, with one being Verified Identity Pass, offering the Clear card for $100 a year. But the fast lanes are only at 13 airports, sometimes only at certain checkpoints and for certain airlines. The overall Registered Traveler program has drawn criticism for privacy and security reasons. The American Civil Liberties Union says it is "based on intrusive but ultimately ineffective probes into travelers' lives." Some say it could aid terrorists, who could get recruits with clean records so that they can speed through security checkpoints more easily.