Safety first, but security, too

The FAA, which has successfully provided safety through backups, now must employ that logic as it attempts to improve security.

[Times photo: John Pendygraft] Maureen Cowburn takes her turn at the new security checkpoint at Tampa International as she prepares to return to England.

By BILL ADAIR

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 30, 2001

WASHINGTON -- Maybe the Federal Aviation Administration could learn a thing or two from itself.

Any way you measure it, the FAA runs the safest aviation system in the world. The U.S. accident rate is a tiny fraction of the rate in other countries. Years go by without any fatalities on U.S. airlines.

But the FAA has a sorry record on security. For years, reports have said the security effort is underfunded and riddled with holes. Auditors have found that checkpoint workers often failed to detect guns and other weapons.

The FAA's security program has been stuck in a 1970s mind-set. Officials were so focused on "Take-me-to-Havana" hijackings that they failed to consider that an airliner could be used as a terrorist missile. When the hijackers boarded planes on Sept. 11, it was perfectly legal for them to bring box cutters and knives. (They have since been banned.)

That leaves two stark images of the FAA -- spectacular on safety, but weak on security.

Why the big difference?

It's clear that the agency has not learned from its success. Officials have not applied the lessons of safety to security. They include:

Backups. Engineers call it the belt-and-suspenders approach. Mechanical problems on an airplane rarely cause a crash because virtually everything has a backup. But if a hijacker got past a checkpoint with a weapon, there has been no backup.

Flexibility. On safety, the FAA takes an open-minded approach that new problems can crop up every day. But the agency's security philosophy has not been flexible and is largely based on events from long ago -- the 1970s hijackings to Cuba and the 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103.

Standardization. Safety features in an airplane are usually standardized, from the location of the cockpit instruments to the durability of the passenger seats. But the FAA's security system is a patchwork of rules that gives more attention to some flights and little scrutiny to others.

"Once you enter the air transportation system, there should be a standard level of security," said John Cox, a US Airways pilot from St. Petersburg who serves as the top safety official for the Air Line Pilots Association. "Right now that is not the case."

Belts and suspenders

Redundancy is a basic tenet of aviation safety. On a modern airliner, virtually everything has a backup.

If an engine fails, the plane can fly safely with the other engine. If a cockpit gauge breaks, there is usually at least one backup -- sometimes two.

Computerized planes have an extraordinary number of backups. The Airbus A320 has seven separate computer systems that are constantly checking each other to make sure nothing is awry.

With so much redundancy, it's rare that a mechanical problem ever cripples a plane. The pilots can usually continue to their destination or, in an extreme case, make an emergency landing at the nearest airport.

But redundancy has been forgotten in security. After you pass through the weapons checkpoint, you usually do not have to go through another -- even if you fly to another airport and switch planes. The FAA's philosophy is that once you've been screened, you are considered "clean" and do not have to be checked again.

That philosophy puts the burden on one or two workers (people who typically earn minimum wage and have a high turnover rate) and ignores the likelihood they will miss some weapons. Once the hijackers got past checkpoint workers on Sept. 11, there was no backup. Airline employees did no further screening and the cockpit doors were a flimsy barrier to keep the hijackers out.

Dennis Deja, a frequent traveler from Largo, points out another lack of redundancy: checking IDs. They are examined only once, usually at the airline ticket counter.

"It seems like it would be easy for somebody to go to the ticket counter, get the ID checked and then give the ticket to somebody else," he says.

People in the airline industry realize their philosophy must change.

A new report from the airlines and labor unions to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta says redundancy is crucial.

Cockpit protection "must be provided in multiple layers," the report says. "Each layer must be capable of providing the protection necessary to delay or deny access to the cockpit."

Hank Queen, Boeing's vice president of engineering and product integrity, made the same point to a Senate committee recently:

"The first line of defense is airport security," he said. "The crew and the airplane should be the last line of defense."

Staying nimble

The FAA has often been nimble at responding to safety problems.

Yes, the agency has had some safety lapses over the years. It was slow to respond to runway incursions and Boeing 737 rudder problems. But there have been many more cases where the agency has acted quickly.

After a cracked fan hub led to an engine explosion on a Delta Air Lines MD-80 in Pensacola in 1996, the FAA moved swiftly to have similar parts removed from other planes. When the agency discovered wiring problems on 737s in 1998, it moved aggressively and grounded dozens of older models for a few days until wires could be inspected.

The swift action was possible because the FAA requires lots of recordkeeping and because the agency recognizes that safety problems can suddenly arise.

In security, however, the agency has not been nimble.

Instead of adapting to changes in terrorist threats, the FAA's philosophy has been largely based on hijackings from 30 years ago.

Pilots and flight attendants still get trained with an outdated 1970s film called The Common Strategy. The philosophy of the film and the accompanying airline manuals has been that pilots should be nice to hijackers.

"It labors under the old scenario of a dissident hijacker who wants to go to Cuba," said Patricia Friend, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants. "That scenario no longer exists. The reality of Sept. 11 shows that times have changed and terrorist tactics have changed."

Likewise, the government has based many of its luggage policies on the explosion of the Pan Am plane over Lockerbie, Scotland. By eliminating curbside check-in and X-raying bags for international flights, FAA officials hoped to prevent a similar bomb from being placed on another plane.

"All of our security measures in the past have been geared toward explosives," FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told a Senate committee recently. She said the hijackers' approach on Sept. 11 "was a whole new world for us."

The script in the cockpit

Ride in a cockpit for a few flights and you'll see pilots perform exactly the same tasks and say exactly the same things.

During takeoffs and landings, virtually every word and action by the pilots is scripted by a checklist. Pilots must do everything in the same order on every flight.

That standardization is crucial. It assures that pilots don't inadvertently flip the wrong switch or forget a critical lever.

Much of the FAA's safety culture has been built on standardization. It assures that pilots respond consistently and, when things go wrong, it makes it easier for them to troubleshoot.

But the security side of the FAA has not embraced the same philosophy. Instead of being standardized, security has been a patchwork of rules and procedures that create different standards for different flights.

International flights get more scrutiny than domestic ones because of fears of another Pan Am 103. That's why all luggage for international flights is X-rayed while only some domestic bags are. Also, international flights are usually subject to a procedure called a positive bag match. Airline ramp workers will remove a passenger's bag from the belly of a plane if they find that passenger has not gotten on the plane.

Duane Woerth, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, told a congressional panel that the FAA mistakenly assumed that smaller planes, smaller airports and domestic flights were less likely to be targets.

"These assumptions have been proven wrong," Woerth said. "It is now clear that any size aircraft from any size airport, international or domestic, carrying passengers or cargo, can be used as a human-guided weapon."

Woerth said that "we must start with the principle that the traveling public and aircraft crew members need one level of safety."

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