Public has ideas on airplane safety

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 7, 2001

Here's a novel way to deter hijackers: Fill airplanes with soap suds.

That was one of hundreds of suggestions considered recently by a Transportation Department task force on aircraft security. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta received the report last week.

Buried at the end was an appendix with suggestions from the public. The list had lots of good ideas and a few odd ones:

Putting electric shocks on the cockpit door that would jolt intruders.

Not labeling cockpit controls so hijackers would not know which to use.

Flying baggage and passengers on separate flights.

Having police officers sit behind "suspicious-looking" people.

Installing listening devices at each seat so the pilot could monitor conversations.

Releasing sleeping gas into the cabin in emergencies, while the pilots use gas masks.

Having an airbag in the nose of the airplane to deploy on impact.

Jettisoning the roof and ejecting passenger seats with parachutes and rafts.

Group warns of nuclear sabotage

Before Sept. 11, it was all too easy for potential terrorists to sabotage U.S. nuclear facilities, a Washington watchdog group says.

In a report released to Congress last week, the Project on Government Oversight said Department of Energy exercises simulating a terrorist attack gained access to facilities more than half the time. The exact number is classified. The watchdog group said its sources were experts who had participated.

In the worst case, terrorists get into a weapons facility and blow the place up.

"Because many tons of weapons-grade nuclear materials are at these facilities, nuclear detonation at one of them would dwarf the impact of Chernobyl," the report says.

Among the large metropolitan areas within 100 miles of nuclear weapons facilities: San Francisco, Denver and Albuquerque, N.M.

Food fuels the fight

National security has a much broader meaning these days.

This summer, oil drilling supporters cited America's dependence on foreign oil as one reason to open up the Alaskan wilderness to exploration. Last week, agriculture supporters said that unless the government paid out $171-billion to farmers, we might find ourselves in a food crisis. Americans have become so far removed from the land, the argument went, that they have forgotten the price of cheap groceries.

Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, gave one of the most critical speeches aimed at those who "think that milk comes from the grocery store." Happy stomachs, peace of mind, even civilization, he said, followed from farming. He ominously warned of the consequences of importing wheat.

Pass the bill, he said, "so that we do not become dependent on food and fresh fruits and vegetables, and meat and dairy the way that we are for oil and gas, lest we ever forget the lessons of history about being dependent upon a foreign nation for our food."

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