excuses for inactivity which the industr calls for radical change within aviati should no longer be viewed as a discret term. In practice, only those routes wh particular danger at any given time wi baggage screening. In the United States noted that standards of screening are low executive with a firm which has developed (TNA) described, in February 1990, the follows :
are likely to remain the weak y employs to fend off public on security - change which ionary option for the long ich have been deemed to be in 11 be protected by proper , in particular, it has been Dr Had! Bozorgmanesh, an a very promising technology extent of the US crisis as
... [We have] discovered that there is an enormous misperception by most international travellers. Passengers are screened and, of course, see carry-on baggage Inspected. That appears to lead many to the false impression that all luggage is inspected for weapons and explosives as well. This is clearly not the case.
With the exception of international luggage that is cleared through TWA's TNA facility at Kennedy airport, there is no routine inspection of passenger baggage for bombs."?*
For one airline, the Israeli carrier El Al, a long-standing danger from radical Palestinian or Islamic terrorist groups has led to a policy decision to adopt human-oriented, defensive tactics on all flights, and so to treat every passenger and every object entering the airport terminal with caution. Some other airlines which have had experience of sabotage, may routinely select certain airports at which to carry out stringent checks on all or a proportion of hold baggage.?* Most airlines and airports, however, continue to hold an identical view to ECAC, avoiding the general use of hold baggage screening as a principal security technique, if only because customary airport design and facilitation pressures make it largely impracticable. This harsh fact was realised by the British House of Commons Select Committee on Transport in the period between its two reports of 1986 and 1989. In the former report it stated the following :
"[It] may only be a matter of time before all hold baggage
be screened or searched."?? must
Two and a half years later, after the practicalities of the "post- Lockerbie" security crisis had been assessed in the context of
?*H. Bozorgmanesh, Concerning the Successes of Thermal Neutron
Analysis as an Explosive Detection System, paper presented to the
P r e s i d e n t ’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, 2 February, 1990, p. 3.
?* Interview with Richard Myers, freelance television journalist specialising in conflict and security, Glasgow, UK, 21 November 1989.
existing security infrastructure and airport capacity, the Committee modified its recommendation radically:
"A percentage of hold baggage is x-rayed and searched on certain flights by British airlines. The purpose, according to the Secretary of State is to deny certainty to the terrorist. Whilst not wanting to disclose the exact percentage, it must be clear to any traveller that it falls far short of 100%. We have already commented on the temptation by Governments to let it be seen that "something is being done" and that temptation is by no means restricted to the British Government. Following the Lockerbie tragedy, the FAA advised that all hold baggage on all US carriers be screened. It was an impractical suggestion which caused US airlines not only at Heathrow and Gatwick but around the world to seek waivers.
The Secretary of State was in no doubt as to the seriousness of the capacity problem when it came to screening hold luggage. If all major world airlines brought in such a requirement, 'world aviation would come to a halt'."?*
In response to this observation, it is reasonable to note that while a screening crisis currently exists, problem-solving techniques can be sought through research and development efforts - and should be without delay - so as to enable the industry which now labours under the pressures of time and work to gain a more effective hold baggage screening ability. As technological advances are made and new generations of screening apparatus are brought into service, it is to be hoped that the Secretary of State's assumption will lose credibility.
For the moment, remedial action has been sought by aviation authorities in the form of inadequate compromises. For example, in the wake of the Lockerbie atrocity, the FAA introduced a regulation requiring all flights under its jurisdiction to Involve screening of transit baggage by X-ray and other means?* - an obviously reactive and piecemeal approach to a specific problem. Despite such "patchwork" efforts, two key problems remain. First is the inability of most operational screening devices to isolate the most potent explosive substances, such as plastic explosives (discussed below). Second is the location problem faced by many airports of introducing any extra form of screening for hold baggage - a time-consuming, troublesome and expensive option for most sites. This difficulty is posed, in part, because of pressures exerted on carriers and airports to process a growing number of passengers and their baggage in a space of time which is either fixed or unable to grow at an appropriately swift rate. These two factors are central to understanding the crisis of security which must be addressed.
?*House of Commons Committee on Transport, (1989), p. 5. In contrast to this information, it is interesting to observe that the Department of Transport announced in the following year that it had set an objective to screen all hold baggage. Department of Transport press release, September 1990.
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