The world watched in horror as a masterfully planned and executed terrorist attack was carried out against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. An inspector in the Philippines, watching the events unfold, reportedly gasped “It's Bojinka. We told the Americans everything about Bojinka. Why didn't they pay attention?” (Washington Post, Sept. 23, 2001)

Bojinka means “loud bang.”

The inspector was referring to a plan, code-named Bojinka, by Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, et.al. to bomb 11 U.S. airliners in the Pacific in early 1995. Murad, a pilot, confessed later to the Philippine Police that he was also planning to crash an airplane into the CIA headquarters. Ramzi Yousef and Murad are now incarcerated in U.S. prisons, Yousef for both the Bojinka affair as well as the first attack on the World Trade Center, and Murad for the Bojinka caper.

Our national shame at our failure to prevent the attacks is incalculable. How could four terrorist groups succeed in penetrating our aviation security system with impunity? Did we disregard intelligence or investigative data? Was it a failure to communicate among government agencies? Was the system ineffective because of a failure in application? Were the system elements the wrong ones? Who was responsible? In short, what happened?

OF KNIVES AND PROFILES

It appears that the terrorists took advantage of two major holes in the U.S. aviation security system, i.e., a system fault in the computerized profile system (CAPPS) and the permissiveness of the U.S. Government requirements for knives and small cutting instruments. Added to these factors may have been the difficulty of detecting some of the cutting weapons used by the terrorist hijackers. We now find that we had advance knowledge that one terrorist in the Bojinka caper had confessed that he planned a suicide attack. It appears that we also knew that a number of persons with connections to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda (the base) group were taking pilot training in the U.S.

As we learn more details each day, the mystery of our failure becomes ever clearer. The FAA's permissiveness in allowing knives with blades less than 4 inches long to be carried onto passenger planes apparently also generated complacency about other short cutting instruments, e.g., carpet cutters, box cutters, etc. It is reported that someone, somewhere in the vast U.S. aviation security system recently asked the FAA about box cutters and had been reassured that it was OK to let them pass through screening points.

More telling, however, is that at least some — and perhaps all — of the hijackers should have been singled out by the FAA's Computer Assisted Passenger Profile System, or CAPPS. Presumably both American and United airlines were applying the CAPPS, and assuming that some or all of the hijackers met the CAPPS profile, then why were the knives, box cutters, razors and any other sharp objects not detected and removed from the hijackers' possession? The answer seems to be that the security measures applied to persons meeting the CAPPS profile apply only to their checked baggage. A CAPPS selectee's checked baggage is examined, and/or a passenger/baggage match is conducted to ensure that the selectee's baggage does not fly unless the passenger accompanies the bag on the same flight. Apparently airlines applying the profile were not required to conduct any search of the CAPPS selectee's carry-on bags.

In addition, it appears that there was no process in place to notify screeners at screening points when a person met the CAPPS profile. So, CAPPS selectees' carry-on articles apparently went through routine passenger screening, just like everyone else's carry-on articles, without any special search or emphasis. That appears to have been the case on September 11, 2001.

Had there been a requirement to do a special search of CAPPS selectees' carry-on articles, in addition to the examination of their checked baggage, the cutting instrument would probably have been found and it is unlikely that a profile selectee would have been allowed to carry them into the aircraft. The hijackers probably did not know that this hole existed, but they did know that knives with less than four-inch blades were permitted. The hijackers may never have known that they had been identified as CAPPS selectees. So, why did this hole in the security system exist? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is not available.

SCREENERS UNDER FIRE, AGAIN

Security screening personnel at U.S. airports have repeatedly been criticized for years. However, the U.S. airlines and their lobbying organization, the Air Transport Association, do not criticize the screening personnel for being inadequately trained because they were responsible for the operation of the screening points. Moreover, it was the Air Transport Association that recommended to the FAA in the early 1990s that 12 hours of classroom training was adequate for screener personnel. And, the Air Transport Association's member airlines are the ones that keep the screeners in economic bondage.

Notwithstanding the criticism of security screening personnel, some of them are quite good at their jobs; those, that is, who actually stay on the job long enough to acquire some skills. Standing behind an experienced X-ray screener is something akin to magic. You can ask them questions about some of the very confused images and they can tell you with remarkable accuracy exactly what each image means. They can even tell you what to expect in a bag by the nationality of the individual passing through the screening point.

So, aside from the FAA's permissiveness with knives, why didn't the screeners raise an alarm to the number of cutting instruments carried by the terrorists? Part of the answer lies in the mass of articles the screeners have to view in short time periods, their individual skill level, their fatigue level, etc. Many of these screeners have to work two jobs in order to earn a living wage. Add to these factors the difficulty of imaging some cutting instruments that are part-metal and part-plastic and their orientation in relation to the X-ray source, e.g., edge on or perpendicular. The combination of these variables can create a situation in which it is impossible to maintain any reasonable level of detection success. This is where profiles and other security layers are supposed to provide complementary measures.

The result is a deadly combination; people with low skill levels because of inadequate training and rapid turnover, low wages requiring multiple jobs resulting in increased fatigue levels and lack of alertness, a multitude of articles to be examined, viewing X-ray images that show a mass of data in time spans of approximately three to six seconds per article, with an impatient public anxious to get to their departing flights. Any distractions, contrived or otherwise, add to all this difficulty in detecting very small cutting objects. In fact, single double-edge razor blades contain so little metal that they will not alarm most metal detectors and reportedly some of the hijackers may have used razor blades imbedded in plastic handles.

LOOKING BACK TO UNDERSTAND

So, we still have the question, who was responsible? The FAA, the screeners, or someone else? Or, was it inadequate equipment? Poor intelligence? Inadequate communications between intelligence agencies, investigative bureaus and the FAA? Some, but not all, of these questions can best be answered by reviewing what happened during the 1990s leading up to the September 11th disaster.

We entered the ‘90s suffering from the loss of 270 persons in the Pan Am-103 disaster over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. Then-President Bush's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism had delivered its report that the U.S. aviation security system was “seriously flawed and in need of reform.” Congress enacted the Aviation Security Improvement Act of 1990 that implemented some of the Bush Commission recommendations, and the FAA was left to implement the remainder under the FAA's already existing aviation safety mandate. The FAA addressed the Commission's recommendation to improve the training of security screeners by promulgating rulemaking in private. In short, the FAA “was in bed” with the airline industry, and accepted the Air Transportation Association's recommendation for a level of training that was totally inadequate.

The Association of Flight Attendants sued the FAA to keep the rulemaking in the public arena but lost when the FAA claimed that to do so would tell the terrorist and other adversaries too much about sensitive security measures. Indeed, to have publicly proclaimed that 12 hours was all the training required would have revealed one of the weaknesses of the U.S. aviation security system. That was why the Association of Flight Attendants wanted to force the FAA to do its rulemaking in the public arena, believing that this would force the FAA to decree much more training. Unfortunately, few Federal Judges will go counter to a U.S. Government agency that claims the security of the public will be irreparably damaged by revealing sensitive measures.

So, the Association of Flight Attendants and their colleagues lost the lawsuit and the rest is history, e.g., we still have the 12-hour training requirement. In one positive development in 2000, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) sponsored a provision in a law to correct this charade. She succeeded in mandating 40 hours of classroom and 40 hours of on-the-job training for security screeners, but the FAA has yet to implement that requirement.

Added to this disgraceful spectacle was the U.S. airlines and their Air Transport Association's objection to the Gore Commission's 1996 consideration of requiring a full-bag match in the domestic United States. The airlines, working behind the scenes, successfully convinced 21 of the 22 Commissioners to accept the Computer Assisted Profile System and a bag-match with any selectees. As a consequence, the CAPPS clearance process focused on checked bags and no one connected it to the need to apply security measures to selectee's carry-on articles. An explanation for the failure, but certainly not a satisfactory excuse.

So, here we stand: violated, frustrated, angry, probably over 10,000 dead, thousands injured, losses of billions of dollars, destruction of one of the economic symbols of the world, our economy seriously impacted, mobilizing forces determined to destroy terrorists, and facing all sorts of unanticipated consequences. The litany of failures include: the FAA's inability to maintain its independence from and overcome the political power of the U.S. airline industry, several perplexing questions about the FAA's judgment of its security measures, and a possible intelligence failure and an investigative communications snafu. A sad and shameful story indeed!

FOR THE RECORD ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mr. Billie H. Vincent is the president and CEO of Aerospace Services International Inc. (ASI), Chantilly, Va., and the former director of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security. ASI is an aviation security engineering design and consulting firm specializing in security systems for airports, airlines and head-of-state facilities. E-mail him at asi@idt.net

Security measures taken by the Federal Aviation Administration in immediate response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks include:

• uniformed security personnel at airports.

• ban on curbside check-ins, and on off-airport check-ins.

• visitors no longer will be allowed to pass through security checkpoints to pick up passengers at the gate.

• knives and other cutting tools, including plastic ones, are prohibited. Previously, knives smaller than four inches long, such as Swiss Army knives, were allowed on board.

• random identification checks of passengers.

• identification checks of employees and vendors.

• matching all luggage to passengers, meaning that a bag cannot be carried onboard an airplane unless the passenger is onboard as well.

• increased use of hand-held metal detectors for passengers, and searches of carry-on luggage.

• searches of all airplanes before passengers board, including cabins and cargo holds.

• increased use of bomb-sniffing dogs or explosive detection machines for checked baggage.

• reduced access to runways and other secure areas of airports.