Swiss-cheese security? Some experts criticize holes in airport screening

BY MAC McLEAN and CHASE PURDY
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER and MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – Several dozen people seemingly disappeared once they walked halfway down a frosted glass hallway that connects the Tri-Cities Regional Airport’s main terminal building with its concourse.

The passengers with tickets for flights bound for Atlanta and Charlotte could be seen up until the point they approached the airport’s security checkpoint, staffed by at least two Transportation Security Administration personnel.

But as soon as the passengers handed over their shoes, coats and carry-on bags, they seemed to vanish – at least from the view of a reporter who watched the checkpoint for five hours on a snowy January morning.

Like most airports its size, Tri-Cities lacks much of the latest security technology, including the controversial full-body scanners over which national discussion has swirled since Christmas Day, when authorities charged a Nigerian in an attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner.

President Barack Obama earlier this month proposed adding 1,000 full-body scanners at the nation’s airports, along with additional explosives detection equipment at a cost of $734 million. It’s unclear where the scanners would go – there are just 40 in use now at 19 airports, including Richmond International – but there are thousands of checkpoint lanes to cover and 449 commercial airports under the watch of the TSA.

Almost two-thirds, or 294, of those airports are like Tri-Cities, Category III and IV facilities, mostly regional airports generating low passenger traffic, according to federal reports. While new security technology makes its way everyday into the nation’s largest airports, many mid-sized and small airports never see the new machines.

And a subtle fact remains: People who board planes at regional airports such as Tri-Cities have penetrated the system. They can work their way to any major airport in the country, and from there, board an aircraft without confronting another checkpoint.

A team of journalists recently observed operations at checkpoints inside four regional airports – Tri-Cities, Shenandoah Valley in Weyers Cave, Charlottesville-Albemarle and Lynchburg. The group used tips from Steve Elson, a former Federal Aviation Administration counterterrorism team member regarded among the nation’s leading experts on aviation security.

In some cases, checkpoints appeared unwatched during down times. In another, a restaurant worker repeatedly walked around a checkpoint without undergoing screening. In all cases, reporters found they could watch checkpoints largely undisturbed, in the same fashion a terrorist might use to case an operation.

Only at Tri-Cities did the checkpoint’s position pose a significant obstacle to reporters observing operations.

Some airport directors tasked with overseeing security beyond the checkpoints said that a lack of interaction between authorities and reporters could have indicated only that reporters hadn’t behaved suspiciously.

“It wouldn’t be particularly unusual to have a passenger sitting in the lobby that long,” said Patrick Wilson, executive director at Tri-Cities.

But Elson said the ability of reporters to gain views of checkpoints and observe operations for extended periods represents a weakness in the system.

“Bad guys conduct surveillance,” he said.

And Elson is careful to point out that even minor flaws can be exploited and can pose a major threat when they’re peppered throughout a far-flung aviation security network.

“They can do whatever they want with the full-body scans or the pat downs or whatever at Dulles or [John F. Kennedy international airports],” said Elson, of Phoenix, who as a member of the FAA’s so-called Red Team in the 1990s tested airport security. “But if a terrorist can find a way into the system somewhere else, it’s just as good. All the terrorist has to do is find that weakness.”

“And that,” he said, “is very easy to do.”

Consistent weaknesses

Security officials emphasize what they call layering, meaning that one component of security backs another, but Elson contends airports are more like Swiss cheese, one hole after another.

The operations are vast, covering hundreds of acres even at small facilities and thousands of acres at larger airports. Passengers funnel in through the security checkpoints staffed by TSA screeners.

At regional airports such as Tri-Cities, Charlottesville-Albemarle, Lynchburg and Shenandoah Valley, the small number of checkpoint lanes at least reduces access points.

“Sometimes, you’ll find that regional airports are actually better just by their nature,” said Bogdan Dzakovic, a former federal air marshal who like Elson once led an FAA counterterrorism unit. “But not everybody understands just how important they are.”

And passenger traffic at regional airports adds up. More than 10 million passengers enplaned at Category III and IV airports in 2008, almost equal to the numbers at Dulles in Washington and LaGuardia in New York and higher than at such airports as Chicago Midway and Ronald Reagan Washington National, according to FAA statistics. More than 200,000 enplaned at Tri-Cities.

In almost every case, Elson said, the weaknesses are consistent at airports large and small.

Start with partitions

Door-lock keypads should have covers and nobody should be able to watch as passengers go through a checkpoint, Elson said.

He recounted a recent layover at Chicago O’Hare. During his wait, he said, he bought a sandwich, found a bench and started dissecting the quality of security and the technological equipment used to bolster safety, the same way journalists at the Bristol Herald Courier and three other Virginia newspapers checked security at regional airports.

“I just parked my butt there for 20 minutes and watched,” Elson said. “And that told me how I could beat that machine and get a weapon through it.”

Even temporary fixes with cheap materials would make big differences, he said. A start, Elson said, would be to partition checkpoints so that they could not be cased.

“If I couldn’t see the checkpoint I’d never have noticed that weakness,” he said, “and how much does it cost? Not much. Cardboard, duct tape, sticks and strings.”

Elson charged that the TSA’s thick bureaucracy has prevented simple, necessary changes from taking place. Though the agency is relatively new – it was formed after Sept. 11 – it employs some 50,000 people.

The TSA, Elson said, has “made things worse. They’ve got people running things who don’t know anything about security. It’s a joke. We’re not safer.”

Repeated efforts to get comments from TSA officials were unsuccessful.

Changes at Tri-Cities

At each of the four regional airports investigated by the Herald Courier and its sister newspapers in Waynesboro, Charlottesville and Lynchburg, security screeners appeared focused and attentive.

At Tri-Cities on a given day, as many as 23 small jets and twin-propeller planes can pick people up and take them to vacation spots in central Florida or commercial-hub airports in three other states.

The passengers boarding these flights walk down the hallway that contains the airport’s security checkpoint. The airport built the hallway as part of a new concourse project finished in July 2001. Since then, the hallway has been upgraded to better address new federal security regulations in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Wilson said.

One of the biggest changes is the installation of a frosted glass wall that separates the hallway’s entry and exit lanes, the airport director said.

The new wall and a cluster of plants and signs placed in front of the hallway’s main entrance keep people from getting a clear view of the checkpoint without going through it first, even if they walk past the metal detectors as they leave the concourse.

That covers a point of emphasis for Elson.

“You have to set these checkpoints up so they can’t be cased. That’s just crucial,” he said.

As with metal detectors at local courthouses and other security checkpoints in the Tri-Cities, the airport’s metal detectors have caught people who had the occasional pocketknife or other metal object in their pockets as they walked through the checkpoint.

But Wilson said none of those people have intentionally tried to bring such items through and he’s “never found anything that somebody’s intentionally tried to get through the checkpoint” as part of a threat.

In several instances at Charlottesville, people remembered upon approaching the checkpoint that they were carrying concealed weapons, said Barbara Hutchinson, the airport’s executive director. Those incidents required a call to the FBI to allow agents to appraise the situation, she said. None of those cases proved serious.

Low-tech, hands on

At each of the airports, the level of technology is low compared to the equipment found at international airports. The issue mostly is about efficiency, officials said. Smaller airports allow for more hands-on security, something Elson called vital.

At larger airports, it’s “easier for someone to try to blend in,” said Mark Courtney, director at the Lynchburg Regional Airport. “Sometimes you don’t need the high-tech equipment at the smaller airport because you don’t have that speed through-put, because you don’t have as many passengers.”

Elson, Dzakovic and other aviation security experts argue that the human component of security is far more important than technology.

“People are the most essential part of effective security,” Dzakovic said. “Technology is a tool. People make it work.”

Even with billions of dollars and blank checks, an airport never will be 100 percent secure, Elson said. Authorities’ task is to manage and reduce risk, he said.

Hiring people experienced in security is essential, he said.

“You don’t know anything if you don’t get out in the weeds,” Elson said. “I’d like to see people with some security experience, and I mean actual security experience. … The people that are out there everyday doing the job know best.”

Chase Purdy is a staff reporter at The Waynesboro News Virginian. Carrie J. Sidener and Bryan Gentry at the Lynchburg News & Advance, and Lee Wolverton at The News Virginian contributed to this report.