Private Charter Flights Need Tighter Security, Experts Say
BY CHUCK McCUTCHEON
08/13/2004
Ray Levato from WHEC TV - 10 called and asked
me to meet him at the Airport. He had read the
editorial and wanted to investigate it.
We started at Piedmont Hawthorne on Scottsville Rd.
While Ray was interviewing me the manager of
Piedmont Hawthorne came out and told us to leave.
He did not want to talk to us.
Ray asked a few questions and got no answers.
I asked him if the people we just observed getting
onto private jets had been screened. He became very
agitated and told us to leave again. - - -
He finished with "You are the ones we were warned about" ???
HOMELAND SECURITY
Private Charter Flights Need Tighter Security, Experts Say
BY CHUCK McCUTCHEON
Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is moving to tighten security
on private charter airplane flights, but some homeland security experts
and lawmakers say more needs to be done to prevent such planes from
being used as bombs.
Private charter operators cater to business executives, sports teams
and others who can pay extra for special flights. They often use more
than 5,000 small airports that usually lack the metal-detection equipment
or security workers required at the 429 airports with scheduled commercial
flights. And they differ from public charters involving large tour groups,
where passengers must go through the same security procedures as those
on commercial airlines.
The Transportation Security Administration in January issued a rule
covering security screening of passengers on private charter flights
with at least 61 seats or a maximum takeoff weight of at least 100,000 pounds.
A Boeing 767, by comparison, weighs around 345,000 pounds at takeoff.
The regulation includes many of the same passenger screening procedures
used for commercial flights, though hand-held metal detectors can be
used at smaller airports. The Transportation Security Administration
also is allowing the use of non-federal screeners in some cases.
Starting April 1, the TSA is expected to add stricter security requirements
for operators of many smaller charter planes, including background checks
and fingerprinting of workers as well as certain cockpit measures.
But some observers want the TSA to go even further. They note that although
such planes could not cause the damage of the 767s that hit the World Trade
Center on Sept. 11, 2001, they could still be deadly weapons for terrorists.
"There hasn't been a lot of progress" on improving charter security,
said Phil Anderson, a domestic security specialist for the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, a national security think tank.
"The TSA does not possess the capability to enforce standards across
the entire charter or general aviation sector. What's the enforcement mechanism?
They've got to rely on industry to do it."
Senate Democrats who recently graded the administration's homeland security
efforts gave charter security a "C," saying planes with at least 15 seats
should meet the same security standards as large commercial jets. They noted
that the new TSA rule exempts planes that are just below the 100,000-pound weight limit.
"These regulations fall far short of what I have consistently supported,"
said Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., who has led the push for tighter regulation.
He has noted that the explosive force of a 90,000-pound Gulfstream V jet
can be greater than that of bombs like those the U.S. military dropped
in Afghanistan.
But TSA officials say they are addressing charter security satisfactorily,
given the multitude of terrorism threats and vulnerabilities the government faces.
"We don't have any threat information that tells us these smaller-sized
aircraft are of particular interest to the terrorist," said Tom Blank,
TSA's associate under secretary for security regulation and policy.
"What we've tried to do is create a system of systems to begin to reduce
and manage the risk. We'd move to put more stringent security regimes
in place if there was a specific threat."
Federal officials have kept Washington's Reagan National Airport closed
to charter flights since 9/11, citing ongoing security concerns.
Elsewhere, though, charter officials argue it is impractical and unfair
to impose costly security requirements when the vast majority of airports
and planes aren't likely to be terrorist targets.
"There are other ways to secure transportation than just taking a
commercial airline model and applying it to a non-airline,"
said Jacqueline Rosser, manager of flight operations for the
National Air Transportation Association, a non-profit group representing
charter companies. "It's a little hard to have an airstrip on a
zen lake in the middle of Alaska equipped with (metal detectors)
when everybody's on a hunting trip."
Charlie Priester, who runs a prominent Chicago-area charter aviation company,
agreed that "there can't be a one-size-fits-all approach" to aircraft security.
He said many charter operators deal with the same regular clientele.
"If you and I get on a commercial air carrier and there are 200 people on it,
we don't know anybody else on there," Priester said. "When people get on a
charter flight, everybody knows everybody else. They're generally employees
of one company."
Anderson, however, said he remains concerned that terrorists could build a
track record simply by booking charter flights to scout them out before attacks.
"You pay your bill, there's no incident, and with one flight you can become a
known customer," he said.
The TSA's January rule originally was to address planes weighing 95,000 pounds
or more, but the agency raised the weight threshold to just over 100,000 pounds
in response to comments from charter companies and aircraft manufacturers.
Canada's Bombardier Aerospace, for instance, complained that its Global Express
business jet was unfairly singled out for restriction while the smaller Gulfstream V
was not.
Blank said the rule modification puts the TSA in line with international standards
and still enables the agency to regulate older DC-9 jets that weigh around 100,000 pounds
at takeoff.
Meanwhile, the agency's requirement on employee background checks and
fingerprinting will apply to planes weighing 12,500 pounds or more.
The TSA had hoped to have those regulations in place already, but
postponed the startup until April because of the difficulty of many
charter operators in setting up training and fingerprinting programs.
Ryan International Airlines in Wichita, Kan., expects to add eight
workers to do screening and ground security for its charters, said
Terry Cox, Ryan's director of security. "There's a little economic
burden and training burden in adding a few people on the payroll,"
Cox said. "But it's something that's doable."
The TSA, in partnership with the non-profit Aircraft Owners and
Pilots Association, has sent brochures and an 18-minute informational
video to private pilots reminding them to be on guard for suspicious or
unusual activity at small airports. The effort is part of an
anti-terrorism program called Airport Watch.
"We're asking you to become highly aware of your surroundings,"
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in the video.
(Chuck McCutcheon can be contacted at chuck.mccutcheon@newhouse.com)
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/mccutcheon031203.html
http://www2.faa.gov/avr/afs/faa/8300/8300_vol4/4_005_00.pdf
http://www.airnet.com/Services/Charter/CharterBrochure.pdf