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"Before the Boeing TWA aircraft left for Kennedy airport, it was parked in Pit No. 22, where a team of some 15 maintenance experts inspected it," said Dionyssios Kalofonos, director of the Greek Civil Aviation Authority. "The plane was not left unattended for a minute." Furthermore, insisted Evangelos Markoulis, spokesman for the Public Order Ministry, "to be precise, a time-bomb device has 12 hours minus one minute to blow up. Therefore, if such a mechanism had been planted on board the aircraft, it would have gone off after it landed at Kennedy." A direct flight to New York from Athens takes 10 hours. To Athens' credit, Greek airport security appears to have improved. Last week passengers on the original TWA flight to New York were screened three times before boarding, once by Greek airport officials and again by TWA employees at check-in and at the gate. At J.F.K. the passengers went through only one screening.
The Greek airport improvement may have happened in a roundabout way--and as a result the Clinton Administration may come under fire for trying to play politics with airline safety. Last February, White House aides tried to squelch a Transportation Department warning to American travelers about lax safeguards against terrorism at the airport. White House aides feared such a warning would prompt a frosty reception for Hillary Clinton when she visited Athens in March to witness the lighting of the Olympic flame. Outraged FAA officials protested that travelers shouldn't be kept in the dark about the warning--which was required by law. Eventually White House lawyers decided the warning couldn't be skirted, so it was issued on March 21, a week before Mrs. Clinton's visit. The White House then pressured the Transportation Department to lift the warning as quickly as possible because newly elected Greek President Costis Stephanopoulos was visiting Washington in May. But the FAA wouldn't budge until the security problems were fixed, and the warning wasn't lifted until May 15, six days after Stephanopoulos' visit.
If the Greeks have indeed fixed their airport problem, how then could a bomb have been put aboard the TWA jet? A terrorist could have flown from Athens to New York and tried to leave a bag with the bomb inside on the plane as he prepared to disembark. But the TWA airliner would have been swept of all bags in the luggage compartments and underneath passenger seats before the Paris-bound passengers were boarded and their luggage loaded onto the aircraft. On the New York-Paris leg, no bag would have been allowed aboard the plane without its passenger on board as well. The terrorist could have persuaded another passenger to unwittingly take his carry-on luggage with the bomb inside. However, airline officials at check-in counters ask every passenger if anyone has asked them to take something aboard the flight. Unless there was a glaring failure in TWA's security procedures, it is unlikely that the bomb was hidden in a piece of stowed luggage. Airline security experts tell TIME that TWA's security procedures are better than those of many other American air carriers.
The FBI is investigating some 50 people--maintenance workers, food handlers and members of cleaning crews--who were in or near the TWA jet during its New York layover to see if any one of them could have planted a device. FBI agents will also begin screening any cargo shippers that may have sent boxes on the plane.