(2 of 5)
Little has changed since then. Although the FAA claimed in the wake of last week's crash that it has in fact implemented all 38 provisions of the 1990 act, the inspector general's office, under Mary Schiavo, who resigned this month, has just finished an updated and still classified study that uncovered many of the same security problems found last time around. This new report shows that undercover agents successfully breached security in 40% of their attempts. That's down from 75% and clearly an improvement, but not one that creates much assurance. "It's just as bad now as it was in 1993," says the Department of Transportation official, who has read the new report. "Very scary."
The General Accounting Office too had made its security concerns public well before last week's crash. A grim report released in March noted that air terrorism remains a grave concern, and that "terrorists were aware both of airport vulnerabilities and how existing security measures could be defeated." After being briefed last week on these concerns, including those raised by the inspector general's new report, Republican Senator Larry Pressler, chairman of the Senate transportation panel, was dismayed, and acknowledged that he was himself "nervous" about flying. "There's got to be an understanding that we need better airport security, that we're going to have to pay for it, and that it's not going to be any fun," he says.
Travelers at international airports have long had that understanding. In London, travelers are patted down, and the government has recently ordered that all checked incoming international baggage be X-rayed, even if the passengers are catching a connecting domestic flight. In most Arab countries, passengers run a gauntlet of 14 checkpoints before boarding. Ironically, at Hellenikon airport in Athens--notorious for uneven security and a target of U.S. investigators--passengers, including those who boarded the doomed TWA 747 bound for J.F.K. last week, are screened several times before they board: by Greek airport officials and by airline officials at the gate.
In the U.S., the FAA requires that all carry-on baggage for international flights be inspected, that all checked luggage be matched with a passenger, and that checked luggage be X-rayed. But a former top security official with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees Kennedy airport, says that to save time, baggage checked at curbside is often taken directly to the cargo area without going through an X-ray machine. U.S. domestic flights still do not require bags and passengers to travel together--even after the CIA issued a warning last summer that there were signs of increased terrorist threats to U.S. airlines. And when the FAA proposed positive bag matches for domestic flights--which the agency says would cost some $2 billion to implement--the Air Transport Association of America, a Washington-based trade group that represents the major airlines, balked at the measure.
TWA CEO Jeffrey Erickson told TIME last week that he does not see a need for dramatic change: "I think our standards are the best in the world. There's been no indication that there's a security problem." TWA has its own wholly owned security service that handles all its international locations, including Athens.