CAA: GA News, "At North Dakota flight school, security means thumbs-up"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wednesday, January 23, 2002

At N.D. flight school, security means thumbs-up 
By Chuck Haga 
Scripps Howard News


GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Federal authorities are interested observers as the
big flight school here, with 1,200 aviation students and instructors
logging 85,000 air hours a year, begins to install a
fingerprint-scanning system to control access to its fleet of 118
airplanes.

Biometrics isn't just for spy movies anymore. The next show: at an
airport near you.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sees the University of North
Dakota's security program as a potential model for other flight schools,
said Bruce Smith, dean of UND's School of Aerospace Sciences. Biometrics
also could control access to baggage, maintenance, fueling and other
airport areas now secured by ID cards, which can be lost, stolen or
altered. Eventually, biometric scanning could control passenger access
to airplanes.

Smith pitched the idea to the FAA and members of Congress during a visit
to Washington after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Federal officials
watched as a prototype system was tested recently in Grand Forks.

"We told the FAA that we're going to set the standard for security,"
Smith said. "Just being more vigilant is not enough."

Biometrics is the use of a scanned fingerprint or eye or facial pattern
in place of an ID card or password to gain access to a secured area,
including a computer network or individual PC. Interest in the
technology - a staple of TV and cinematic CIA agents and their bad-guy
counterparts for years - ballooned after Sept. 11.

UND's aviation program, one of the largest in the country, was a natural
to draw attention after the attacks. FBI agents were in Smith's office
by Sept. 14.

Pictures on a wall at the school include a gallery of young Middle
Eastern men. They all came to North Dakota over the past 10 years saying
they wanted to learn how to fly.

And they did. Today, Abdulla Ali Mirza Johar flies for Gulf Air. Shihab
Alireza flies for Aramco, the big oil company. Many of the other 250 UND
aviation graduates from the Middle East work for airlines and other
companies there.

Students now enrolled in flight training include 22 Saudis sponsored by
Aramco.

"Two days after Sept. 11, we took all the Saudi guys out to dinner to
reassure them," Smith said.

The focus on security was throttled up after a student pilot in Florida
stole a plane and crashed it into a Tampa skyscraper Jan. 5.

"I want to make sure the people who have access to my airplanes are the
people I want to have access to my airplanes," Smith said. "A badge or
identity card can be lost or stolen. Biometrics ties you personally to
the badge."

Students and flight instructors will have their fingerprints scanned
into a database over the next few weeks, Smith said. The new security
system will use existing technology and should be operational later this
semester. It's being developed by VeriFly, a company formed with private
investors by the Aerospace Foundation, a public nonprofit corporation
that serves as a link between industry and the school.

Because VeriFly hopes to use the UND operation to pitch the system to
other schools, airports and government agencies, the company is waiving
a $65-per-student charge for fingerprint scanning, Smith said.

ID badges aren't enough anymore, he said, pointing to an incident last
month in which an American Airlines pilot - concerned about the
credentials of an Arab-American Secret Service agent on President Bush's
security detail - ordered the agent off a flight.

"I don't know what a Secret Service badge looks like," Smith said. "I
wouldn't have let him on the plane, either. But if we had a biometric
thumbprint to check that badge against, it'd be 'Welcome aboard."'

The school has taken other precautions since Sept. 11. All airplanes are
kept overnight inside locked hangars. And all flight instructors must
attend a class in suicide prevention, Smith said.

The John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences got its start 34 years
ago when Odegard, who died in 1998, started an aviation department
within UND's business school with two donated Cessnas.

It has grown into a sprawling complex on the western edge of campus and
at Grand Forks International Airport.

Flight teams from UND have won the National Intercollegiate Flying
Association championship 12 of the past 17 years, including 2000 and
2001. The school has trained scores of pilots for the national airlines
of China and other countries.

When FBI agents showed up three days after the attacks, Smith was ready
with notebooks containing pictures and backgrounds of all students and
recent graduates from the Middle East.

"We weren't worried," he said. "The Middle Eastern students we have are
nowhere near the profile of the terrorists. Many are married, all are
college graduates - most studied in Europe - and all are sponsored by
companies.

"We don't take walk-ons," he said. "You can't just stroll in here, put
money down and say, 'I want to learn how to fly.' You have to be a
regularly enrolled degree student or sponsored" by a company or
government.

Also, "All international students must have a valid passport and
up-to-date visas. And that's checked."

The FBI came back with questions about two students. One was a British
subject of Iranian heritage who had completed flight training in 2000
and was still in the country; he was deported, but for reasons that had
nothing to do with terrorism, Smith said.

"The other one they flagged was a name match with a list they had," he
said. "But it was a common Arabic name - like an Arabic Bruce Smith."

Only one serious incident has occurred since the attacks, Smith said. A
Park River, N.D., man attacked Mohammed al-Masari, an aviation student
from Saudi Arabia, at a Grand Forks bar on Oct. 30. The man, Kevin
Dvorak, 22, has pleaded guilty.


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