European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 24, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Up photo Security beefed up at Rome Airport paramilitary police with sub machine guns Overlook crisis management instead of Lon term vigilance Security elimination of curbside Luggage As a Security clutters f terminal in san up photo by Stuart Diamond new York times nearly All airline hijackings and terrorism could be foiled by currently Avail Able Security devices and but few air carriers or countries apply them suf Security experts hardware on the drawing boards could further reduce the risks by increasing the automation of the but Lack of government financing has slowed that Prog according to manufacturers and officials at Federal interest in improving Antiterrorist systems has surged since the june 14 hijacking of a trans world airlines plane after it left Athens and a suspected bomb ing on june 23 that took 329 lives on an air India Jet off on that Day a bomb took two lives at Narita Airport near none of those or any of the hundreds of terrorist acts against airlines in recent involved methods so sophisticated that they could not have been stopped by available Security those inter viewed the equipment and procedures Are available to Stop hijackings and but they Are not applied adequately nor is common said Robert de Security expert and senior vice president of Philips electronic instruments a leading Security equip ment manufacturer in Henry Reis a former top official in new Security technology for the Federal aviation administration and now an aviation Security said the technology is the problem is that As in Many other the Secu Rity of airports is oriented More toward crisis manage ment than Lon term while airline terrorist acts Are very in a significant number have evaded the Security even before the june 23 air India 944 people were killed in 66 aircraft explosions caused by bombs and other illegal materials from 1965 through the since 1969 there have been 375 successful hijackings of commercial Agency figures Many hijackings occur with hand grenades or automatic Security experts these would be revealed by properly working Metal detectors screening or by xray machines examining Carryon but some weapons have been found smuggled aboard aircraft before presumably by ground person last for an american airlines dc10 from Croix to new York was hijacked to Cuba by a convicted murderer whose guards let him go unattended to the he returned with a in some hijackers smuggled aboard gasoline that they threatened to although gasoline can be smuggled through Metal detectors if concealed on a trained xray opera tors could recognize it on the screen if put in Carryon a few hijackings have occurred with and in some cases a Hijacker without a weapon has bluffed the airline experts bombs typically consist of an a timing det orator device and wires that can be recognized in carry on or checked baggage by xray or they will set off an alarm in a Metal dynamite is readily recognizable by its shape plastics which have a less rigid Are More diff Little can shield besides kid or heavy but the shield then becomes a telltale the assortment of electric devices carried in Luggage from gun shaped hair dryers to Batte Ryand wire strewn tape recorders and computers makes identification of illegal material More difficult because it often has a similar shape and apparent Densi experts More sophisticated devices Are being developed to detect explosives or guns but no sure system has yet been interviews with Security government airline personnel and others knowledgeable about Secu Rity technology disclosed these problems and issues raised by the recent incidents Security such As xray devices and Metal Are now very sophisticated but Are too often poorly operated or to save time and reduce false alarms in some Metal Detec tors Are often set with lesser sensitivity so that weapons could go Security Quality varies contrary to popular Airport Security is not considered among the Israel and communist countries Are regarded by experts As having the Best 1 Bird world nations the the weakest links in the system Are the personnel responsible for Airport equipment operators often receive the minimum wage boredom and inattention Are maintenance workers and catering personnel Are often not screened adequately before they Are hired or when they go to few airports examine All checked lug Gage for although technologies and proce dures have existed for this is the most common route for new technology representing a substantial leap from current methods has been known since 1980 but has been slowed by a Lack of Federal some of the devices would now be available with greater i researchers the total Security budget for the which finances most Airport Security re is million a its said Tom Security head for the Domestic and inter National airline pilots the risk of Airport terrorism can never be because Well financed groups May be Able to buy the services of the Best weapons experts to overcome new but these experts generally work in government or and Are deemed highly unlikely to be swayed by such neither Faa nor airline spokesmen would make their Security experts available to address such airline spokesmen defended their records by say ing that the risk of becoming a victim to a terrorist action was minuscule considering the billions of Miles flown each last year there were Only 20 hijackings worldwide out of 11 million commercial but airlines acknowledged the need for in there can always be improvements in hardware and said James chief spokes Man for pan american world hijackings would be difficult if not impossible if the system worked there should be a lot of pressure on airlines to make sure we Are doing our a variety of by contend that airline Security is no better because Many air carriers consider it too costly and too much of a Aaron a Manhattan attorney who has represented victims of airline said there would be More incentive for airlines to increase Secu Rity if International liability limits of to per passenger injury or death were if airlines were hit More in the Secu Rity would Broder machines to scan the contents of Luggage have become progressively More sensitive in the last 20 most xray machines now use computer technology to break Down the Luggage contents electronically into millions of discrete digits and then translate them into visual images on a the result is a much clearer picture of each after the Twa reports quoted one suspected accomplice As saying that the weapons were wrapped in fiberglas insulation to evade Security de vices at the Athens that Story is a fake fiberglas is very easy to said Martin a Massachusetts Institute of technology Annis is president of american science and engineering a manufacturer of Airport xray equipment based in but it is the proper use of such equipment if it is installed at All that poses Security experts there Are scores of airports throughout the world where Security is poor or Ashwood a Lack of funds is the More common reason in third world while both Low financing and lax attitudes toward Security Are found in More affluent several experts singled out the United we dont get scared on a Day today Annis we just get excited for a couple of weeks when something these experts said that Many american airports were Lucky that they had not been struck by communist governments such As in the soviet Union and China were said to have Superior Airport Israel is considered to have the worlds Best Airport largely because of the constant threat of terrorist Israel hires specially trained person Nel to examine every piece of Luggage checked bags As Well As items passengers carry on each Pas Senger is also briefly questioned when checking in bag saudi Arabia and Oman also received High Marks Greece and Lebanon Low except for South nations on that continent were considered by knowledgeable experts to have very poor Airport most airports do not a system to examine checked Luggage Security experts Israel examines such baggage manually and by x Ray at be Gurion International Airport near Tel but the United states and other such As have done Only spot Security experts its almost a said he said it would Cost Only 5 to 20 cents per boarding to examine checked he someone could place bomb Laden Luggage aboard a plane and not some airline officials said the delays for thorough baggage inspections would be especially at crowded Security experts said that Hadnot been the experience in saudi where a Philips electronics sys tem rays Luggage at the checking it is monitored remotely by guards at a Central Loca a Green Light appears if the bag passes if a red Light goes on and the bag is checked experts said the system did not take much additional in saudi the King i want everything up photo so it Sci Chart of Philips in the United until the Faa docs the same it wont be All Security experts interviewed said the biggest prob Lem was the human trained Security guards can recognize illegal devices just As trained radiologists can Sec a speck of cancer on an but there arc questions about Many airlines staff their machines with min Imu wage folks from private Security Reis the if you buy a that what you the Job is considered very in the United the Faa requires Airport Security personnel to be proficient at unauthorized but sets no specified training the Agency also does not License or test individual Security guards As it docs with air plane Faa officials instead periodically Send unloaded guns and bomb like devices through Security Gates As a they say the effectiveness of the system is attested by the fact that guns Are confiscated by Domestic Airport Security guards every some foreign by have police or other More highly skilled people operate the xray shifts Are rotated every 20 to 30 and supervisors Plant unauthorized materials several times a Day to Check the Security experts perhaps the weakest part of the human the experts is the maintenance and Cater ing which could sneak a weapon aboard a plane and place it in a washroom As is now suspected in the Twa hijacking from background checks before hiring Are not sufficiently experts once familiarity Breeds lax they a Guy delivers bagels for six months he gives some to the guards Reis Elbara he becomes totally familiar soon he is just waved if he is reachable by he could bring in All sorts of things on his As an added some airlines have instituted psychological profiling to Alert Airport personnel to possible the profile includes such things As buying a one Way ticket in Cash and appearing Ner because of the acknowledged problems with human much of the research on new technology has been aimed at minimizing human participation in Airport the most Complex new systems would add less than to the Cost of a Security experts few of the new measures would require much More said Joseph former Faa Security expert and now president of Avsec a Maryland aviation Security one device is a compute driven xray scanner that automatically identifies objects by density and without the need for it sounds an alarm when it finds something in Early Westinghouse delivered two Proto Type machines to the Faa for about a year ago american science and engineering delivered an such machines would initially Cost perhaps 10 times As much As the of current xray but the Price would drop with mass and personnel costs would be experts Faa officials said that with machines tested so far there has been too High a false alarm rate from objects with the appearance and density of plastics expo we had heavy books give off false and even a Foo Long said Fred an Faa Annis said the problems were a function of computer software that must be Faas sources said the project had been put on the Back there have also been experiments with nuclear magnetic resonance which use radiation in an enclosed area to create a magnetic Field to identify lug Gage but those devices damaged magnetic tapes in animal sniffers such As gerbils were used to detect certain Vapours Given off by but were found Long line at Airport Security checkpoint in san where guards examine Carryon bags after they have already passed through xray Page 14 the stars and stripes july the stars and stripes Page 15