Toward safer skies
Aviation security has improved since 9/11 but not by enough
Aviation security was once, to many, a joke. The airlines hired private companies to run checkpoint screening, but they offered such poor training and measly pay that the workforce provided merely a mirage of protection. Eventually there was a hefty price to pay. On Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers easily beat the system and brought about the most calamitous terrorist attack in American history.
Since that day, though, the government has focused hard on aviation security. The situation has unquestionably improved--$17 billion has been spent, screeners are now federal employees, and high-tech security equipment is planted in every airport. But troubling inconsistencies remain, and efforts to tighten the system further raise questions about what's possible, what's practical, what's affordable--even what's desirable.
The push to radically improve aviation security began just after the 9/11 attacks. On Nov. 19, 2001, President Bush signed the comprehensive Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which created the Transportation Security Administration and set out a ream of tough deadlines and mandates. Chief among them: a federalized screener workforce and 100 percent baggage screening.
But "things are still very much in flux," says terror expert Roger Cressey, especially with the screener workforce. As the federalization program began, problems with completing thousands of background checks led the TSA to hire people who had criminal records. Covert tests of airport checkpoints done by the Government Accountability Office reported that a small number of knives and fake bombs still got past screeners. The Homeland Security Department's inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, recently reported that a pilot program testing the effectiveness of private screeners found that they performed as "poorly" as federal screeners.
Even the number of screeners has sparked debate. The Transportation Security Administration hired more than 55,000 workers, but the spree rankled some on Capitol Hill, including House Appropriations Homeland Security subcommittee Chairman Rep. Harold Rogers, who angrily capped the TSA workforce at 45,000. Today, TSA must still shuffle job slots between airports to keep pace with their changing needs and remain under the cap. The result has sometimes been chaos. This past summer, the combination of stormy weather and uneven staffing left steaming passengers in long lines--or even missing flights--at airports like Los Angeles International and Chicago's O'Hare. In the meantime, screeners from Newark to Seattle are working exhausting hours, fueling a rising burnout rate, warns TSA Administrator David Stone. One screener from Sacramento International Airport told U.S. News that her coworkers let some bags that seemed to warrant further scrutiny pass because of staffing shortages.
Some changes could come this fall, when airports will get the option of switching back to private security screeners operating under federal supervision. This so-called opt-out program was a deal struck to pass the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. The rationale was to give airports more flexibility in how they run security while ensuring they meet federal standards. But confusion about how the opt-out program will work has most airports hesitating to sign on.
The government has also had trouble trying to broaden background checks on passengers; several 9/11 hijackers might have been identified by government watch lists but slipped through. The TSA began working on a new program, called Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening (CAPPS II), which would have had airlines check commercial databases to determine whether passengers pose a security risk. But opposition from travelers and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union brought that to a halt. The TSA recently announced a scaled-back program, Secure Flight, that will have government officials do the checking, and only against lists of known or suspected terrorists. It will very likely start appearing in airports in January.
"Real threat." Security checkpoints present challenges as well, especially in regard to spotting explosives. While all checked bags are scanned for bombs, passengers and carry-on bags go through detectors that can't spot most nonmetallic materials, such as plastic explosives. Only a fraction of fliers and carry-ons undergo further testing with machines that use swabs to check for explosives residue. John Lehman, a 9/11 commissioner, told a House subcommittee that attempts to bring explosives on board planes is a "very real threat" because terrorists know they can no longer access locked cockpits. Lehman made these comments just hours after bombs brought down two Russian jets on August 24. Two Chechen women who died in the attacks are suspected of bringing the explosives on board. The incident proves that terrorists "are still watching and looking for weaknesses that can be abused" in the aviation system, says Rafi Ron, former security director for Israeli airports.
Efforts to improve explosives screening in the United States have faced a rough road. In June 2003, for instance, a TSA lab director stirred controversy over technology that uses X-rays to reveal weapons or explosives a person might carry under clothing. "It does . . . make you look fat and naked," she said, "but you see all this stuff." The government is now scrambling to develop a more mannerly system that protects privacy, and walk-through portals that sniff passengers for explosives residue are being tested at five U.S. airports. Just last week, screeners got new--and likely controversial--authority to frisk some fliers.
Even if checkpoints were airtight, experts say, there are still gaping holes in cargo security. Most U.S. passenger planes carry some mail or freight, but high costs, technology headaches, and the emphasis on superfast shipping mean only a fraction is manually checked or X-rayed. The TSA has begun testing explosive-detection machines on smaller items and wants eventually to screen all "higher risk" freight. But for now, it does random screening and relies on a database of "known shippers." Lawmakers like Rep. Edward Markey have so far unsuccessfully called for 100 percent cargo screening because they say the current system is unreliable. Last fall, 25-year-old Charles McKinley flew from New York to Dallas in a cargo crate that went unchecked because it bore the name of a known shipper. Freight companies have helped keep ideas like Markey's at bay. "It would kill air cargo," says David Wirsing, executive director of the Airforwarders Association.
One way to solve that problem may be to make the cargo holds blast-proof. The 9/11 commission recommended that every plane have "at least one hardened container to carry any suspect cargo." The Federal Aviation Administration has been looking into such solutions for more than a decade. But the containers would add weight to the planes, forcing struggling airlines to burn more fuel or carry fewer passengers and less cargo. The TSA has awarded a $250,000 grant to a company to develop a lighter system, but it has no timeline for completion of the project.
Old designs. A less obvious, but no less troublesome, challenge is the layout of American airports; most were designed to let people move quickly and freely. When Tampa International Airport opened in 1971, for instance, planners wanted to keep walking distances from car to plane at under 700 feet. So a parking lot was put on the terminal's roof. "That's great for passengers and horrible for security," says Evan Futterman, chairman of aviation services at design firm HNTB. Tampa didn't close the lot, but now it runs vehicle inspections there.
But what really makes airport managers wince are those SUV-size baggage-screening machines in ticket-counter areas. These areas were the only spaces large enough to quickly install the CAT-scan-like equipment and thus meet deadlines to screen checked luggage for explosives. But the subsequent congestion in lobbies has created new hazards, says Tampa airport spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan. So now, the push is for "in-line" baggage systems that put the machines behind the scenes to work with baggage conveyor belts. But the construction necessary to do that is complex. "If you looked at the diagram, it would give you a headache," says Jimmy Wooten, the TSA's federal security director at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The automated webs will increase reliability, but only 17 airports, including Dallas and Tampa, will have them by 2006. The problem is money--it would cost up to $5 billion to install one in every U.S. airport, yet lawmakers have allocated only $1.5 billion since 9/11. The Bush administration has requested $250 million for such projects in 2005. This is "a perfect example of where the federal government cannot afford to be penny-wise and pound foolish," says Charles Barclay, president of the American Association of Airport Executives.
In fact, money is a never-ending issue when it comes to aviation security. That will become clear over the next few weeks as lawmakers "trip over each other" to act on the 9/11 commission's aviation security ideas before Election Day, says Cressey. A bipartisan group of congressional heavyweights recently introduced a 280-page measure that builds on several of the panel's suggestions, including a traveler screening program that spans all modes of transportation and a completed biometric entry-exit system for foreign travelers. The staff of the 9/11 commission has released more than 90 additional recommendations, and the TSA's Stone vows to issue a long-sought comprehensive plan for aviation security by the end of the year. But all these ideas will be expensive, not just for the government but for strapped air carriers as well. They are balking at the $3.8 billion they say they spend each year for security costs. James May, who heads up the Air Transport Association, says the government should foot the bill as part of its homeland security expenses. But that idea is, well, up in the air.
This story appears in the September 27, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.