Airport workers linked to gun flow

With the increased number of guns showing up in airports, it may be time to resume asking questions about security. Do we in fact have a serious problem with guns in our airports and, if so, is there anything to be done about it?

The number of guns discovered in passengers' carry-on bags by Transportation Security Administration screeners is rising sharply each year. There were 2,201 found in 2014, up 21 percent from 2013 -- and that was up 16.5 percent from 2012. It also stands to reason that at least some guns slip through security and are illegally carried on planes.

In 2013, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport led the way among U.S. airports where guns were found at checkpoints, at 111.

In 2014, Atlanta came in second, with 109, just below Dallas-Fort Worth, with 118, among airports where the most guns were found. Atlanta had been in first place for the previous two years.

Then there's the audacious plot, based at the Atlanta airport, in which authorities said more than 150 guns were smuggled onto 17 Delta Air Lines flights from Atlanta to New York over a seven-month period that ended Dec. 10.

Just before Christmas, authorities said they arrested the smuggler, his accomplice (a Delta baggage handler who authorities said brought the guns into the secure area of the airport), and others charged as participants in the illegal sale of guns on the streets of New York.

According to the Brooklyn district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, that operation had been going on for a lot longer than the seven-month span described in indictments that named the former Delta employee, Mark Q. Henry, as the man who carried the guns on planes. "We also know, based on investigation, that Henry had been smuggling guns on commercial airliners for years, for at least five years," he said. (An attorney for Henry did not respond to a call seeking comment.)

The Atlanta airport is reviewing security procedures, a spokesman said. There was a previous gun-smuggling case at that airport. In 2011, a former Customs and Border Protection agent pleaded guilty to a federal charge of trying to smuggle guns onto a flight for resale to a drug cartel, "using his badge to bypass security" at the airport, according to prosecutors.

The problem of easy access to secure sections of airports by employees and contractors who do not go through the kind of screening that passengers do is widespread and has been known for many years, said a retired American Airlines captain, G. Bruce Hedlund.

"It's not just Atlanta, which is now taking all the heat," he said. "It's all airports. There's always a way for people to come and go with access just by swiping an ID card."

Big airports have hundreds of ways for large numbers of workers to get into the secure areas. The Atlanta airport, for example, says that 58,000 people work there in various jobs.

Since the Atlanta case broke, there have been numerous calls for strict tightening of security in the vast underbellies of airports, including from some in Congress demanding immediate remedial action. But what action, exactly?

"I'm amazed at the artificiality of demands for immediately sealing gaps in Atlanta," Hedlund said. "This could have happened anywhere, and anybody who knows anything about airport security knows that there is a potential for this every day. It all comes down to, at what cost and how serious are you about providing that level of security?"

Anthony Roman, a security consultant, mentioned far higher costs "to passengers, airlines, airports, municipalities and the state and federal governments" in fully securing backdoor access against workers with badges who might have criminal intent. But he and others suggested that at least the screening processes need improving.

"The current state of background investigations for airport employees is really a glaring vulnerability," said Sean M. Bigley, a lawyer who specializes in security clearances and investigations. "Most people are under the erroneous impression that someone with an access badge to a secure area to an airport has undergone an extensive background investigation. That is not the case."

Bigley suggested that workers in secure areas -- from burger-flippers at a McDonald's in a terminal to ramp agents with direct access to airplanes -- undergo the same kinds of background checks, depending on job category, as federal employees.

And everyday vigilance clearly must improve. Take the Delta baggage handler charged with taking guns into a secure area of the Atlanta airport and passing them to the man accused of being the smuggler, who had already cleared checkpoint security and could easily carry the weapons in his backpack onto airplanes. On numerous occasions that coincided with known dates of gun-smuggling, that employee (since fired by Delta) was in restricted airport areas even on his days off, according to an affidavit.

That plot was centered on illegal gun sales, not terrorism. But security experts say they shiver at the idea of firearms in the hands of terrorists.

Fortified cockpit doors are generally regarded as a deterrent to in-flight hijackings, but the equation changes a bit when terrorists have firearms. "With a secured door and some guy in the back shooting up the airplane, I could get on the ground reasonably quickly," said Hedlund, the retired American Airlines captain, who is a former Air Force pilot. "But it isn't a scenario you'd want to experience."

Travel on 01/25/2015

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