ABC Radio september 13, 2001
Outrage at lack of security at American airports
This is a transcript of PM broadcast at 1800 AEST on local radio.
MARK COLVIN: So how could the United States be so vulnerable to such an apparently simple terrorist plan?
Well it appears the attackers found the United States at a highly vulnerable moment. Airport security is now a hot topic in the national press. At least one of the international airports involved had recently been fined for poor security and there are scores of anecdotes from passengers who describe how easy it is to wander onto tarmacs and take weapons on board aircraft without question.
Tanya Nolan reports.
TANYA NOLAN: Four planes hijacked from three international airports all within the space of 15 minutes. The relative ease with which this sinister plan was carried out to its ultimate horrific end has shocked and terrified the world but it hasn't surprised many in the aviation security business, including British aviation expert Eric Moody.
ERIC MOODY: Security in America is putting it something lightly as 'lax'. In some places it's non existent. Now we're told these people only got on with knives, but knives are enough to control an aeroplane and if you're determined - and it really depends on the determination of the hijacker whether he takes control of the aeroplane - they obviously were very determined.
TANYA NOLAN: John Pike heads American-based security firm Global Security.org and is considered a world expert on defence, space and intelligence matters. He goes further, saying it was airport security - or a lack thereof - which was the primary failure in the tragic sequence of events.
One frequent flyer in the US told the PM program via e-mail of his regular encounters with lax security at American airports.
UNIDENTIFIED: At Detroit Metro Airport I don't want to put the lunch I just bought at the deli through the x-ray machine so, as I pass through the metal detector, I hand the sack to the guard through the space between the detector and the x-ray machine. I tell him it's just a sandwich, he believes me and doesn't bother to check. The sack has gone through neither security device.
TANYA NOLAN: He goes on to recount other incidents where he's allowed onto a plane without his ticket, how he was left on the tarmac free to wander, and how he and a fellow traveller were able to bring knives, razors and even a hammer and chisel onto one aircraft.
Dr Paul Bates was on the last flight to land at the Los Angeles airport yesterday before it was evacuated and, as the Head of Aviation Studies at Queensland's Griffith University, he has a lot of questions about how hijackers got on board the planes and how they then entered the cockpits.
DR PAUL BATES: Crews are trained to deal with hijackings and in fact the transponder codes to indicate that a hijacking had occurred weren't . weren't set off either. So there's a whole series of very strange questions here that I think need to be answered before people should be comfortable to fly with American Airlines.
TANYA NOLAN: The American press at least is clearly uncomfortable, indeed scathing, of the job being done by the country's aviation safety watchdog, the Federal Aviation Administration. An editorial in the LA Times Newspaper describes the FAA as shamefully slow in making improvements in aviation safety and quotes America's government accounting office which recently concluded that the threat of terrorism against the United States is an ever present danger, largely because the FAA has failed to fix serious vulnerabilities in America's aviation system.
The FAA moved quickly yesterday to beef up security across all American airports. The restrictions include banning knives of any form from being taken onto aircraft. Previously blades shorter than four inches had been allowed. Out of airport check-ins will now be prohibited and only ticketed passengers will be permitted to proceed beyond metal detectors. There will be more physical checks of passengers, a greater use of Federal Air Marshals and other security officers on planes and within airports, and higher standards for airport security screeners and contractors who supply security personnel.
But many experts say these measures still won't go far enough to reduce the risk of further terrorist attacks in American skies and if the Federal Aviation Administration fails to get it right, the LA Times is one of many American mouthpieces ready to lay blame with its editorial concluding that Federal Officials have a duty to do everything they can to patch as many holes as possible in Americas tattered aviation safety net. Their failure to do so, despite the sensible recommendations of scores of Commissions in the 1990s, was an outrage. On Tuesday it became part of an unspeakable tragedy.
MARK COLVIN: Tanya Nolan.
Copyright 2001, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
