European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 11, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Big Apple gridlock Byers Weiner new York times Hose Tush hour commuters sitting immobilized in new York traffic gazing enviously at the helicopters above can take heart. Gridlock has gone airborne. More helicopters seaplanes air planes and blimps Are circling Manhattan than Ever before. For the last 10 years the airborne traffic around new York has increased about 5 percent annually said Lenny rider director of heliports for the port authority of new York and new Jersey. On a Busy Day there Are More than 500 helicopter takeoffs and landings from Manhattan s four heliports. Order is kept through a kind of airborne party line an informal radio frequency where pilots report their whereabouts to one another. Although some pilots refer to the skies around Manhattan As Kamikaze corridor most said thai with very few exceptions the system works. We re All in this together said George Meade who As a traffic reporter for Wor radio has been plying the skies Over new York for 20 years. Everyone s looking out Lor one another Thomas Olivo has been flying in the new York area for just As Long As a Pilot for Wall Street helicopters. On a recent flight around Manhattan he demonstrated the kind of Cool needed to survive life in the corridor. You want to be at an Altitude where you can Glide into the water and not the City he said gently raising the aircraft to an Altitude of 900 feel. Olivo speaking above the loud whop whop whop of the Bell Jet Ranger helicopter said that the skies were most crowded during the summer. Sometimes there s a bottleneck on a summer evening Olivo said. Everybody s going to the  the Federal aviation administration has designated a Large chunk of the sky around new York As a terminal control area a tightly controlled zone where pilots Are required to communicate with air traffic controllers. But along the Hudson River and on the East River below the 59th Street Bridge pilots need not talk to controllers. The one stipulation is that they Fly below 1,100 feet Well Clear of the airliners above that Are preparing to land at one of the three major airports. The pilots who Fly along the airborne freeway use a concept that the Faa Calls see and  it Means that when the weather is Clear pilots rely on their eyesight not air traffic controllers to keep from colliding. On a Busy Day radios crackle with the voices of pilots giving their positions. A Peculiar Type of camaraderie binds those who earn their living in the densely packed skies around Manhattan. You Fly around Here Long enough you get to know everybody Olivo said. Of course some of them i know Only by  despite the huge number of aircraft buzzing around Manhattan there have been fewer than half a dozen fatal accidents in the last 15 years rider of the port authority said. An inspector using an a Ray machine to examine carry on Luggage at Kennedy International Airport purity who s going to pay Byers Weiner new York times y ordering the airlines to begin screening passenger Luggage with a new Type of bomb Detector the government Hopes to prevent terrorist attacks like the bombing of pan am flight 103 Over Lockerbie Scotland that killed 270 people last december. But the new procedures Are also expected to intensify the debate Over who should shoulder the growing Cost of Airport Security the government the airlines or most Likely the passengers. In the months after the pan am bombing the transportation department ordered several new Security measures but the government s latest attempt to Seal the Security Gap is by far its most ambitious. Over the next decade the  airlines will have to install a total of 860 bomb detectors at airports around the world Kennedy International Airport alone will need 19. Developed under a government contract the machine called a Thermal Neutron analyser can supposedly detect All types of explosives including the kind that investigators believe destroyed flight 103. But critics including airline officials and Airport operators said the device is still unproven. The Detector bombards suitcases with radiation and then analyses the results for nitrogen which is common in most explosives. But the machine can be fooled by other substances that contain Small amounts of nitrogen such As cheese Wool and leather. It is unclear if the machine can detect a bomb that weighs less than two pounds such As the device investigators believe was aboard the pan am flight. Each of the 10-ton machines costs $750,000, and when maintenance labor and other expenses Are taken into account the Federal aviation administration estimates that the Cost for All the machines will total $896 million Over the 10-year installation period. The airlines already pay $500 million annually for Security. Unlike foreign airlines whose Security costs Are often subsidized by their governments and Page 14 the stars and stripes therefore by the Public . Carriers must absorb or pass on nearly All such costs to passengers. The airlines arguing that they Are merely surrogate targets Tor terrorist attacks aimed at the . Government say that Washington should foot the Bill. Similar concerns have been shown by some in Congress including sen. Frank r. Lautenberg d-n.j., who is chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on transportation and sponsor of the Bill that mandated the bomb Detector installation. When our interests were threatened in the persian Gulf the president sent the Navy to protect the flow of Oil Lautenberg said. To did t Tell the Oil companies to hire their own soldiers to Man their own  but the Bush administration certainly aware of the record profits earned by the airlines lately As Well As the huge Federal budget deficit has not budged. Earlier this year Secretary of transportation Samuel k. Skinner proposed that the airlines impose a Security Tariff on International tickets to pay for the bomb detectors. Such a charge might amount to about $2 a passenger said Robert Marx a spokesman for the department. The International federation of airline passenger associations a Geneva based umbrella organization of consumer groups has proposed a $1 tax on All airline tickets. The tax would raise about $1 billion a year which would be used to finance technological research and subsidize Security in poorer countries where airports often Lack even Basic a Ray machines. Meanwhile the Airport operators have proposed their own surcharge. They fear that the new bomb detectors which Are the size of a Small truck will require extensive renovation of Airport terminals. But consumer groups Point out that airline passengers already pay a ticket tax of 8 percent which along with a fuel tax is funnelled into the aviation Trust fund established to finance Airport improvements and the updating of air traffic control equipment. Over the years the fund has amassed a $6 billion surplus. Critics argued that the Reagan administration was reluctant to spend the Money because it helped mask the budget deficit. Monday sep