Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Airport security's dirty little secret: While pilots are searched, thousands of baggage loaders and cleaners waltz right through.
Jun 10, 2005 | An airline captain, let's call him Steve, arrives at a large U.S. airport to begin a three-day assignment. He's dressed in full crewmember ensemble, and he totes the ubiquitous black roll-aboard and flight case. Clipped to Steve's pocket is a plastic case containing his FAA airman licenses, medical certificate, company I.D. and tarmac access badge.
Steve reaches the mouth of concourse C, where his credentials are eyed by a TSA employee who allows him to pass. Allows him to pass, that is, 20 additional feet to the metal detector and X-ray machine. There, before proceeding to the gate where his jetliner and passengers await, Steve and his belongings undergo the exact same scrutiny that befalls the 1.5 million or so paying passengers who move daily through the nation's terminals. His pockets are emptied, his laptop removed, his luggage scanned for contraband. A TSA screener asks Steve to open his overnight bag for closer inspection.
Simultaneously, in a nondescript annex at the far side of the terminal, a young worker, whom we'll refer to as Hector, is punching in for the 4 p.m. to midnight shift. In a small backpack he carries a radio, a change of clothes and a bagged meal from home. After a shuttle ride from the parking lot, Hector reaches the unguarded door. He types in a PIN code and slides a magnetic badge through a slot. The door buzzes, opens and allows Hector to step inside.
Hector is 24, an American by way of Guatemala, and is employed by a firm that supplies cabin-cleaning services to the airlines. Several large carriers contract with Hector's company, and his first assignment this afternoon will be primping and straightening the economy section of a just-landed Air France 777, later destined for Paris with 270 people on board. Hector hates working these long-haul turnarounds, as the seats and aisles are especially clogged with rubbish.
Once in the building he undergoes no further security checks. It's a short walk to the tarmac, where a van carries Hector and his colleagues to planes that await cleaning.
Perhaps it surprises you to learn that flight crewmembers -- pilots and flight attendants -- are among the few groups of airport workers subject to concourse screening, while tens of thousands of personnel like Hector -- caterers, cleaners, mechanics, gate agents and baggage loaders -- whose duties require unfettered access to jetliners, are able to bypass this checkpoint entirely. Most of these people are themselves airline employees, though a high percentage are contract staff belonging to outside companies. While Steve sits in the cockpit running through the preliminary checklists, everything from his flashlight batteries to his underwear having been given the once-over by a guard, Hector is out back, rummaging through the plane's unminded spaces, free and clear.
Or perhaps, considering how much security-related buffoonery we've endured since the terror strikes of 2001, you're not surprised at all. But no matter how cynical one's take on our post-attacks windmill chasing, these double-standard concourse procedures are arguably the most glaring example of foolishness to date -- so brazenly contradictory as to be almost unbelievable.
The requirement that pilots and flight attendants undergo checkpoint screening was imposed by the FAA after the crash of a Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) flight in 1987. A recently fired ground worker, David Burke, used his credentials, which the airline had failed to recover, to carry a concealed handgun onto flight 1771 from Los Angeles to San Francisco. En route, he shot both pilots and nosed the airplane into the ground near Harmony, Calif., killing all 44 on board.
The FAA's response was not to implement screening for ground workers, but for pilots and flight attendants instead. As a public relations gimmick, passengers now saw crews having to wait in the same annoying security queues as everybody else. It looked like a tighter system, when in reality it did nothing to preclude another David Burke.
Change, however, may be coming. On May 26, Rep. Nita Lowey, a Democrat representing New York's Westchester and Rockland counties, reintroduced legislation to eliminate the present loophole. Her bill, the aptly titled Guaranteeing Airport Physical Screening Standards (GAPSS) Act of 2005, would mandate physical inspection for all workers with access to aircraft or sensitive areas. The legislation was previously introduced at the end of last year -- too late for action but in time to raise awareness of the issue. "Until the current inconsistencies are addressed," Lowey says, "the system cannot work."
As it stands, all workers with airside privileges, whether pilots, baggage loaders or lavatory scrubbers, are subject to fingerprinting, a 10-year criminal background investigation, and cross-checking against terror watch lists. Is this enough? In 2003 a narcotics smuggling ring organized among airport employees was broken up at New York's JFK International. Back in 2002, when the government launched "Operation Tarmac," more than 800 ground staff were netted for background check discrepancies, including numerous failures to report past felonies.
While it's tempting to say the workforce has been adequately purged, there remains precedent of enough illegal activity to warrant extra vigilance. And after all, the likelihood that someone will carry a bomb to work in a lunch pail, whether an al-Qaida operative or a plotter like Timothy McVeigh, may not be relevant to what's known of his or her past.
"These existing checks are inadequate," Lowey maintains. "Already we've seen the screening gap exploited for criminal purposes, and why leave open the door to something far worse?"
Somewhat perplexing has been a federal reluctance to embrace what strikes most people as a commonsense measure. A similar proposal was rejected in 2002 by TSA, ostensibly over cost concerns, though according to Lowey's office no estimate was ever released. Only last year, the Government Accountability Office recommended stricter screening for the estimated 1 million employees currently able to bypass the explosive-sniffing, X-raying, and patting-downs affecting the rest of us. The recommendation has gone ignored. In light of the government's relentless fixation with security, from our color-coded alert levels to the invocation of terrorism at every turn, how could such an idea not be popular?
As some see it, tolerance for the status quo is yet more evidence of a government with a penchant for playing it both ways -- eager to bolster the perception of tight security in lieu of ensuring the real thing.
