Blame is hotly disputed in shoe-bomb case (me as contributor)
December 30, 2001 - The Boston Globe
An international game of finger-pointing has erupted over the decision to allow Richard Colvin Reid, the shoe-bombing suspect, to fly on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami eight days ago.
American suggests that French police should have prevented Reid from boarding on Dec. 22. The FAA wants to scrutinize the airline and its security contractor. French police say they did their job and note that airlines bear some responsibility for screening passengers.
The mission of assessing blame is complicated by the possibility that everyone had played by the rule books while failing to close the gap that allowed a scruffy and dazed-looking Reid, carrying enough plastic explosives in his shoes to blow up the jet, to fly from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, aviation security experts say.
And if authorities in charge of that airport’s security are responsible for the lapse, it will be difficult for US officials to denounce the French. Today, most industry observers say the American model for airport security pales in comparison to that of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle.
‘‘I can guarantee that their security is a whole lot better than ours,’’ said Michael Boyd, a Colorado airline consultant.
According to a General Accounting Office report, the United States, Canada, and Bermuda are the only three countries with international airports that allow airlines to bear the responsibility of screening passengers.
In 100 other countries, airports or governments are responsible for screening passengers and baggage, though they often hire private contractors. In Western Europe, where governments have long battled terrorists, the bar is especially high.
Even before Sept. 11, security workers at the continent’s busiest airports were backed by armed police or soldiers. Screeners must go through a more rigorous selection and training process. In return, they take home higher salaries and better benefits. Turnover is lower.
In sharp contrast, in the United States ‘‘it is common for the starting wages at airport fast-food restaurants to be higher than the wages screeners receive,’’ Gerald Dillingham, the congressional General Accounting Office’s director of civil aviation issues, said in testimony before Congress in September.
Security workers in countries such as Belgium and France require extensive training that includes different methods of screening. France demands 60 hours of training, compared with the FAA standard of 12 hours.
In Britain, authorities stepped up their scrutiny of baggage and passengers after a bomb destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 just before Christmas in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland; the plane had left from Heathrow, outside London.
In Britain and other West European countries, most checked-in bags are scanned; at US airports, only a fraction of luggage underwent screening before the attacks on Sept. 11.
At Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, where Palestinian terrorists hijacked a plane in 1973 and shot up an airport terminal 12 years later, the security includes bomb-sniffing dogs that search aircraft before flights. Police with machine guns are a familiar sight in European airport terminals.
At the last stop, the gate, airlines can provide another tier of security. And the most stringent gateways are maintained by the Israeli carrier El Al, known for vigilant sky marshals and aggressive security measures designed to thwart attacks. The carrier’s bulletproof cockpit doors are locked, and passengers are interviewed before flights.
Over the summer, El Al gave Reid a body search and removed his shoes for screening before he was allowed to fly from Amsterdam to Israel. He was then seated next to an armed sky marshal in the back of the plane, an Israeli source was quoted as telling The Associated Press.
Pilots also can run interference, exercising broad powers under ‘‘captain’s authority.’’ Although not responsible for airport security, pilots who feel uncomfortable flying certain passengers can put them off the plane, even though airline and federal authorities had cleared them. Since Sept. 11, some have exercised their captains’ authority to refuse boarding to people they deemed suspicious.
This month’s attempted bombing over the Atlantic may make pilots even more vigilant, in spite of backlash from civil-rights and Arab-American groups. Some pilots interviewed by The Boston Globe said they would not have allowed Reid to fly if they had been made aware that he was a walking warning signal - a ‘‘selectee’’ who posed numerous security risks, though holding valid British identification and receiving clearance from French police.
‘‘We are not responsible for security,’’ said Nicholas Ryder, a pilot for a large domestic airline. ‘‘But a lot of us do it for our own survival.’‘
Reid’s passage through Charles de Gaulle has been an embarrassment for French border police and the Interior Ministry. In spite of the use of private security contractors, they are in charge of overall airport security, and they have been sharply criticized for allowing Reid to board without being hand-searched and without being sniffed by dogs that can detect plastic explosives.
In a videotaped message to employees, which was aired on ABC News, the American Airlines chief executive officer, Donald Carty, appeared to point to French police. ‘‘Our people brought the passenger to the attention of French authorities,’’ he said. ‘‘It was only after those authorities cleared him that he was allowed to board the flight.’‘
An employee of ICTS, a security firm hired by American Airlines, called for border police when Reid tried to board a flight on Dec. 21. The worker had become suspicious because Reid had checked in no luggage, had provided no fixed address, had paid cash for the ticket, and had a murky travel agenda. Claiming he was Jamaican, he discussed plans to go to Antigua, through Miami, for a family visit.
Police checked his British passport and let Reid go after verifying its authenticity and checking for a criminal background. At the airline’s expense, he stayed overnight at a nearby hotel.
The next day, it was a different story. Reid boarded Flight 63, reportedly with little or no interference. After takeoff, he was overpowered by airline crew and passengers as he allegedly tried to ignite plastic explosives in his shoes with a match. The jet was diverted to Boston, where a judge has ordered him held without bail.
Joaquim Masanet, head of a union representing French police officers, said criticism of French authorities was ‘‘unjust and excessive.’’ Masanet said the only grounds on which Reid could have been refused access would have been his physical appearance.
French border police have noted that Reid’s papers were in order, and that walk-through metal detectors widely in use at international airports, including Charles de Gaulle, cannot detect plastic explosives.
Fulvio Raggi, head of border police, was quoted by the newspaper Le Monde as saying airlines also have some responsibility for checking passengers.
‘‘No one, it seems, wants to take the blame here, and the gaps that are being discovered between airport security is allowing everyone to escape blame,’’ said a French police union official, Patrick Georges, who spoke for the elite CRS, France’s national rapid intervention corps.
In the end, though, responsibility for airport security rests with governments, whether they do the work themselves, use private contractors, or allow airlines to take on duties, said Denis Chagnon, a spokesman for the International Civil Aviation Organization. That means the French government, too, must ‘‘ensure the implementation of security standards’’ at its airports, he said.
Since the attempted bombing, security at Charles de Gaulle has been tightened. More border police roam the airport with bomb-sniffing dogs, and airport security workers and customs guards also have added reinforcements.
Several questions remain unanswered, including whether the captain of Flight 63 had been made aware of the suspicious passenger’s presence and the details of the earlier screening. But even if the captain opted to fly with Reid on board, some pilots said it would be hard to pass blame.
Roy Freundlich, a US Airways pilot and union spokesman, said criticism would be ‘‘too much like Monday-morning quarterbacking.’‘
In addition, ‘‘we don’t remove people because they have funny-looking faces,’’ he said.
Officials at ICTS, the firm utilized by American Airlines, were also frustrated by the late second-guessing. In hindsight, said the CEO, Lior Zouker, it is clear that the shoes were ‘‘the weak link’’ - but not tomorrow’s security risk.
‘‘The question is: How are we dealing with this in the future, not yesterday?’’ said Zouker, a former El Al sky marshal. ‘‘It’s not whether he had blue shoes or black shoes. Because tomorrow, it won’t be in his shoes.’‘
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
