CAA: GA News, "Small airports manage security on the fly"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Monday, October 7, 2002

Small airports manage security on the fly
By KATIA RAINA
The Press of Atlantic City, NJ


EAGLESWOOD - There was no sign of a human presence around Eagles Nest
Airport here on a recent weekday afternoon. Only the birds.

Two small airplanes were tied to posts on an open field. Some cars were
parked by the dirt road nearby, but there was no trace of the drivers.
No one appeared at any of the three tractors, three trailers and the
truck on the site.

Shortly after terrorists hijacked four planes and slammed two of them
into the World Trade Center last year, scenes like this around the
country were the subject of concern among terrorism experts, government
officials and local residents. 

Last fall the national media observed that while the government imposed
new rules for large commercial airports, small private ones might become
the target of a terrorist attack.

Today, small airports in southern New Jersey are still trying to deal
with the new security challenges arising from Sept. 11. Some airports
upgraded security by building fences or asking local police to patrol
them. Others couldn't afford new measures. 

But one way or another, a year after the Sept. 11 hijackings, the
industry is handling security on its own. The state office of
counterterrorism says small aircraft safety in the skies is the
responsibility of individual airports and the FAA. The FAA in turn has
no regulations currently in place regarding surveillance, baggage
screening, aircraft stationing or pilot and passenger checks. 

For most small airport operators, the fact that FAA has no surveillance
regulations is just fine. 

Laws that are too stringent would hit the operators' already small
budgets too hard, some industry professionals say. General aviation
consultants and pilots organizations say the airports may have varying
levels of security but are not likely to be targeted.

"I would say that there is as much reason to worry at a small airport as
there is at a public parking lot," said Walt Lamon, an aviation expert
and president of Wyvern Consulting Ltd. in Burlington County. 

"I would think the potential for damage is similar, and to me it's a
heck of a lot easier to get into a car or a truck and turn it into a
bomb. There has always been some form of security measures, and I know
that it increased in all cases. If you did nothing before, you do
something now, and if you did something before, you do more now."

"Should we be concerned? You bet," Lamon said. "But in the same way, I
think we should be concerned about everything."

Midge Hannah, the manager of Hammonton Municipal Airport, is not worried
about a hijacking. Security there is at the same level that it was about
six or seven years ago. 

"We didn't really have to (make any changes)," Hannah said, "because we
were pretty secure before then."

The gates at the airport are locked, she said, and someone is on watch
12 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week. The rest of the time the police
monitor the area, and the spotlights light it up at night, she said.

Like all other small airports in the area, the Hammonton facility has no
formal background checks for pilots or their passengers, Hannah said. 

"Most of them come in and they have the information if we want to look
through it," she said. "We get most of them by referrals."

As far as the passengers are concerned, "the pilots have to take
responsibility for whom they are letting in their aircraft," she said.
"If they want to fly, they just go into the aircraft and fly. They don't
have to register or anything."

The reason the system works, airport operators say, is because workers
at a small airport know everybody and it is much easier to recognize
suspicious activity than if you are flying thousands of people daily.

"Security is a concern, but it also has to be looked at relative to the
threat," said Warren Morningstar, spokesman for the national Aircraft
Owners and Pilots Association. "A small airport is much like a small
neighborhood, where everybody knows everybody, and anything that's
suspicious, that stands out, is going to be reported. And that
heightened sensitivity is certainly there since Sept. 11."

Jim Salmon, spokesman for the Delaware River and Bay Authority, which
operates the Millville Airport and the Cape May Airport in southern New
Jersey, expressed the same idea. 

Salmon said there are new arrangements with local police and other
security upgrades such as fences in all of the company's airports since
last September, and the airports may be getting security video cameras
in the near future. 

Salmon didn't want to appear cavalier about any potential terrorism
threat.

"This is a new day and a new age, so to say that I'm not worried is not
quite the point," he said, adding that with increases in security there
seems to be little now to worry about. 

Working on new guidelines

There are 115 small airports in New Jersey, said Sgt. Al Della Fave of
the State Police, referring to those that do not handle commercial
flights. State authorities are leaving all private airport security
questions to airport operators and the FAA, according to Roger Shatzkin
of the state Office of Counterterrorism.

"However, we are reviewing the federal law to see if it pre-empts the
state from doing something separate and apart from the federal
authority," Shatzkin added.

The FAA's Transportation Security Agency also is engaged in a review.
The TSA has instituted some new guidelines for airports around
Washington, D.C., since last September. But that's it.

"The manager has to know who is flying from his airport," said Dave
Steigman, a spokesman for the TSA. "They have to have undergone a
federal background check, and they have to be on a cleared list to fly.
They have to be approved by federal authorities, and there has to be
notification of local law enforcement."

But there are no new regulations at all relating to security of small
aircraft operators, Steigman said. 

"We give suggestions as to how general aviation airport operators can
improve their security," Steigman said, "as to improving certain pockets
and putting up fences. But there are no statutory regulations at
present, at the nation's general-aviation airports."

Steigman suggested, however, that the TSA is considering putting new
guidelines in place soon.

"We would hope and expect something in place in the early fiscal year
2003," he said. 

Eagles Nest Airport

Eagles Nest Airport in Eaglewood Township has few reasons to worry, its
owner Diane Kummings said, despite the fact that the airport doesn't
have an alarm system or video cameras around. 

"The airport has never been important enough," Kummings said. "But you
know what, at the same time that I'm saying this, it could be because it
is remote, and I don't want to attract that kind of attention."

Kummings is sure of her clients - wealthy professionals, artists and
politicians who fly their aircraft from her small field, to work and
play. Sen. Jon Corzine is one of her clients, she said proudly.

But would she like to increase security a bit - put up a fence, hire
guards, have more staff to be around more often? Sure, she would. 

But Eagles Nest Airport's budget is way too small for anything of that
sort, she said. 

Would she like to see some help from the state and federal authorities
in this regard? Sure.

"I'd like to see a lot of things happen here," she said.


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