"Report finds 'huge gaps' in air safety"

By: MapleLeaf_330 - 22nd January 2003 at 18:35

This one is a bit long as well, but I thought that the forum might find it interesting.

OTTAWA—An airline crew boarding a plane in November was horrified to discover a whole box of box-cutters left on a seat — evidence of the potential menace posed by lax airport security in Canada, a Senate committee said yesterday.

The alarming incident was cited in a report titled "The Myth of Security at Canada's Airports" released yesterday by standing Senate committee on national security and defence.

The report says there are still "huge security gaps" in the screening of checked luggage, mail, airport workers who have access to planes on the tarmac, and little or no screening of passengers or cargo travelling on private or charter aircraft.

"The front door to the airports has pretty well been closed at the expense of the side and back doors," said Conservative Senator Michael Forrestal.

The box-cutter incident was reported to the committee by flight attendant France Pelletier, an official with the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

Committee chairman Senator Colin Kenny told reporters it was never determined how the box got there, and said it illustrates what the committee called the "inadequate and haphazard screening" of all kinds of workers who have access to aircraft on a runway, including food workers, groomers, mechanics and luggage handlers.

"Passengers didn't put it there; they were searched. Pilots didn't put it there; they were searched. Flight attendants didn't put it there; they were searched," said Kenny.

"Somebody else is having access to the aircraft and these things are getting on."

The report, and testimony it was based on, did not specify at which airport the box-cutters turned up, and Pelletier said in an interview yesterday she could not recall the details.

Box-cutters were used by the Sept. 11 hijackers to seize control of U.S. airliners.

The 252-page report acknowledges measures to toughen passenger and hand-luggage screening since Sept. 11, 2001, have made the system "a bit safer," but said some gestures, like seizing nail clippers, were "more symbolic than useful."

The senators concluded "little or no improvement has been made behind the scenes in the Canadian travel industry" and the "soft underbelly" of aircraft — the cargo hold — is vulnerable.

Transport Minister David Collenette, who hadn't read the complete report, told reporters the senators were wrong to use what he called "anecdotal evidence" to raise the spectre of threats to safety.

"I'm here to reassure Canadians that we have a very good system. It's recognized by our colleagues in the United States. It's recognized by other countries that we deal with."

The bipartisan committee unanimously called on the federal government to:

Install anti-explosive scanners to screen baggage in all airports by the end of this year as in the U.S., not the end of 2005, as planned.

Require immediate random as well as targeted screening of all checked baggage, parcels, mailbags, and cargo until 100-per-cent screening can be installed by year's end.

Issue to airlines by March 31 new federal training guidelines for flight crews in how to deal with suicide terrorists on board. (Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, there have been no new training programs for pilots and flight attendants, with employees complaining procedures still operate on the hijacking scenarios of the 1970s where crews try to negotiate with hijackers.)

Require double cockpit doors, not just reinforced locked ones, to provide a secure barrier between the pilots and passengers, such as on Israel's El Al planes.Require security passes of national, uniform design that would include biometric information like fingerprints or iris scans. Passes would be issued for air crew and all other airport workers, including contract employees, who have access to restricted areas at airports. (Transport Canada says it is developing improved passes to be available in about a year.)

Refuse to allow pilots to be armed.

Designate the RCMP as the force in charge of all policing related to the security of passengers, cargo and aircraft at all airports. The committee cited the confusing array of agencies at some larger airports, like Toronto's Pearson International, where 56 different agencies, including the RCMP, CSIS, regional police services, and American authorities like the FBI, CIA, and U.S. State Department all play some role.

The report said thousands of airport workers know the system's flaws, and "if insiders and the friends of insiders know what the flaws are, so should ordinary Canadians." The committee said it "refuses to be complicit in a cover-up."

The committee also slammed the federal government for its failure to provide a detailed accounting of the nearly half a billion dollars now being raised annually through the $24-per-round-trip security tax levied on air travellers.

Kenny said the money is funnelled into the general consolidated revenue fund, and there's no way to know if the money is being spent directly on security measures, whether it is adequate, or whether it is an excessive levy on Canadians.

But Collenette said the government is accounting for the tax dollars raised and the $2.2 billion over five years allotted in the December, 2001, federal budget for air security through the normal appropriations channels.

He noted the agency responsible for airport security policy, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), has been fully operating only since April, and said it will be properly audited by the auditor-general.

"What is key here is how the $2.2 billion will be spent over five years, and it will be a wash," said Collenette. Collenette said the report's title and its thrust are "highly misleading."

Canadian Alliance MP Jim Gouk said the committee report was no surprise and rightly shows "the flaws in the system."

But Gouk said he disagreed with the committee's suggestion that passenger screening has been taken care of. He argued a determined terrorist could still wreak havoc by boarding a plane with a sharpened piece of plastic or other implements that could be used to threaten a flight crew.