Terrorism spotlights air-security technology

Terrorism spotlights air-security technology
WASHINGTON — The four hijackings and subsequent bombings that hit the United States Tuesday (Sept. 11) raise again the question of how technology — specifically, sophisticated tomography — could have prevented the attacks.

Airport security has been an issue since 1961, when three American-registered commercial airlines were hijacked as hijackers attempted to reach Cuba.

The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security headed by former Vice President Al Gore issued a report in February 1997 urging the government to "consider aviation security as a national security issue and provide substantial funding for capital improvement."

The commission recommended that the U.S. government "commit greater resources to improving aviation security and work more cooperatively with the private sector and local authorities in carrying out security responsibilities."

One problem, the report said, is that current aviation security is largely based on defenses installed in the 1970s to combat hijackers and recommendations based on the 1989 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

"Improvements in aviation security have been complicated because government and industry often found themselves at odds, unable to resolve disputes over financing, effectiveness, technology and potential impacts on operations and passengers," the report warned.

Indeed Charles G. Slepian, a risk analysis expert affiliated with the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center in Oregon, has suggested that U.S. airports are porous.

The United States "has created an airport security standard driven by the need to prevent aircraft hijacking but which is of little practical use in this era of sabotage and terrorism," he wrote in a recent report.

"For the vast majority of air travelers, security at airports means standing in line for what really amounts to a cursory check for weapons," he wrote.

Gore's aviation commission recommended a "new partnership" to marshal federal and local resources and focus efforts on a single goal: improving U.S. air safety. It called for spending $160 million to improve aviation security.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was also instructed to establish standards for using Explosive Detection System machines, technology which tracks passengers and matches passengers with baggage.

In response to the report's recommendations, the National Security Council formed a group headed by the U.S. Transportation Department on aviation security.

It has been left to the private sector, for the most part, to innovate technologies to better ferret out illegal materials at airports.

InVision Technologies Inc. (Newark, Calif.) earlier this year said it shipped more than $3 million of the company's CTX 2500 Explosive Detection Systems aviation security systems and related accessories to the FAA.

The shipments are under a three-year contract for more than $57 million awarded by the FAA in March 2000. The company said it shipped these systems during the second quarter ended July 1, 2001. Additional FAA orders are subject to the yearly government budgeting process.

Analogic Systems (Peabody, Mass.) has developed a bomb-detection system that makes clever use of DSP technology to go beyond the capabilities of conventional X-rays.

The Examiner 3DX 6000 generates three-dimensional images of the contents of airline luggage and carry-on bags. It takes a 360-degree X-ray, with both high- and low-energy beams, calculates the relative density of objects and materials, and then presents this information (with printouts) as a 3-D, color-coded picture to a security-system operator.

Thus, both metallic and non-metallic bomb materials and triggers — ordinarily obscured by cassette recorders, radios and other consumer gadgets — can be revealed. In addition to explosives, the system can be used to detect drugs and other illegal contraband.

Two of the largest manufacturers of Threat Image Projection equipment (TIP; the equipment used to scan luggage and handbags at airports) reported recent contracts with the FAA. L-3 Communications (Clearwater, Fla.) reported Sept. 6 that it had received awards from the FAA for product installation and enhancements for in-line scanners at several airport locations throughout the United States.

Heimann Systems Corp. (Wiesbaden, Germany and Pine Brook, N.J.) reported on May 11 that it had received an FAA order 134 TIP-ready X-ray systems for the screening of carry-on baggage. However, a Heimann spokesperson said that FAA regulations prevented the company from identifying the airports where this equipment will be installed.

Still, there may be little other than human vigilance that can prevent catastrophes such as Tuesday's, in which hijackers in at least one of the four planes overtook the crew with nothing more than knives and cardboard cutters.