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Dangerous objects still allowed on planes

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Corkscrews, walking canes potentially lethal weapons

Thursday, January 15, 2004 Posted: 1:30 PM EST (1830 GMT)

Among items air travelers are allowed to carry:
Cigar cutters
Corkscrews
Cuticle cutters
Eyeglass repair tools
Eyelash curlers
Knitting and crochet needles
Knives, round-bladed butter or plastic
Lighters with absorbed liquid fuel and disposable lighters
Toiletries with aerosols, in limited quantity
Safety razors (including disposable)
Scissors -- plastic or metal with blunt tips
Toy transformer robots
Toy weapons (if not realistic replicas)
Tweezers
Umbrellas
Walking canes

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Commercial pilot Fred Bates could not board the twin-engine jet he was about to fly from Dallas to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, until he passed through a metal detector. Airport screeners had to make sure he was not carrying a pen knife, box cutter or scissors.

Yet once aboard, he saw that an elderly passenger was holding a cane -- a potentially lethal weapon.

From knitting needles to ball point pens, passengers still are allowed to bring on all kinds of potential weapons, Bates said.

There are even more things that can be found inside many commercial airliners -- mirrors, ice picks, metal silverware -- that could help a terrorist.

While the government has made changes aimed at tightening aviation security, some experts believe those efforts have focused too much on what passengers are trying to take on board.

Michael Boyd, an airline industry analyst with the Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colorado, said nearly anything from shoelaces to hangers could be dangerous.

"We're fixated on pointy objects," Boyd said. "The whole idea is, we have to identify where the risks are. They are at more than the screening checkpoints."

The Transportation Security Administration, which took over aviation security after the September 11 attacks, has spent billions of dollars to hire screeners and upgrade equipment. But Boyd said little has been done to ensure terrorists cannot get near a plane through an airport's back doors.

Airport workers such as fuelers, mechanics and caterers need to be screened for weapons before they are allowed near a plane, he said. A closer eye needs to be kept on air cargo facilities. Perimeters need to be more secure.

Many levels of security
Just last week, the government renewed its warning that the al-Qaeda network continues to show interest in using commercial planes to mount an attack.

The federal agency acknowledges it cannot keep every possible weapon off an airplane, so it has put in place many levels of security, amounting to what it says is a reasonable defense against terrorism: thousands of air marshals, reinforced cockpit doors, electronic screening of checked baggage for explosives, bomb-sniffing dogs to search airplanes.

"There are a million different scenarios that we could drum up or surmise," agency spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said. "The answer is in the layers of security. What can you do with a butter knife when you've got a reinforced cockpit door?"

Still, the vast majority of the agency's aviation dollars pays for screening passengers and their bags. This year, roughly half of its $3.7 billion budget for aviation security is to be spent on passenger screening. An additional $1.3 billion is for baggage screening. Far less goes toward checking cargo carried on commercial planes, training pilots to carry weapons in the cockpit or for other security efforts.

Bates, who is on the pilots' Committee for the Armed Defense of the Cockpit, wants the agency to train and arm more pilots faster than the current pace of about 50 a week. He estimates 1,000 pilots are now allowed to carry weapons. The agency has said it soon will double its classes.

Theodore Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said taking dangerous objects away from passengers does make it harder for terrorists to commandeer planes.

But Postol said planes remain an inviting target and the government should think about how planes can be built so terrorists cannot gain control. Biometric devices, for example, could be attached to the aircraft control system so only authorized people could fly planes.

James Carafano, a homeland security expert with the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, said the post-September 11 reality is that passengers and pilots will not let terrorists take control of an aircraft again.

"The box cutter scenario would never work again," Carafano said, referring to the method used by the 19 September 11 hijackers "Nobody is ever going to turn their plane over to a terrorist."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/01/15/airline.security.ap/

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