Aviation Security: Terrorist Acts Illustrate Severe Weaknesses in Aviation Security Page: 3 of 14
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problems with airport access controls, and in one series of tests, the
Inspector General's staff successfully gained access to secure areas 68
percent of the time.
* As we reported in June 2000, tests of screeners revealed significant
weaknesses as measured in their ability to detect threat objects located on
passengers or contained in their carry-on luggage. In 1987, screeners
missed 20 percent of the potentially dangerous objects used by FAA in its
tests. At that time, FAA characterized this level of performance as
unsatisfactory. More recent results have shown that as testing gets more
realistic-that is, as tests more closely approximate how a terrorist might
attempt to penetrate a checkpoint-screeners' performance declines
significantly. A principal cause of screeners' performance problems is the
rapid turnover among screeners. Turnover exceeded over 100 percent a
year at most large airports, leaving few skilled and experienced screeners,
primarily because of the low wages, limited benefits, and repetitive,
monotonous nature of their work. Additionally, too little attention has
been given to factors such as the sufficiency of the training given to
screeners. FAA's efforts to address these problems have been slow. We
recommended that FAA develop an integrated plan to focus its efforts, set
priorities, and measure progress in improving screening. FAA is
addressing these recommendations, but progress on one key effort-the
certification of screening companies-is still not complete because the
implementing regulation has not been issued. It is now nearly 2 V2 years
since FAA originally planned to implement the regulation.
* Screening operations in Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and
the United Kingdom-countries whose systems we have examined-differ
from this country's in some significant ways. Their screening operations
require more extensive qualifications and training for screeners, include
higher pay and better benefits, and often include different screening
techniques, such as "pat-downs" of some passengers. Another significant
difference is that most of these countries place responsibility for screening
with airport authorities or the government instead of air carriers. The
countries we visited had significantly lower screener turnover, and there is
some evidence they may have better screener performance; for example,
one country's screeners detected over twice as many test objects as did
U.S. screeners in a 1998 joint screener testing program conducted with
FAA.
The events of September 11, 2001, have changed the way this country
looks at aviation security. Last week, FAA and the air carriers
implemented new controls that promise a greater sense of security. We
support these actions. Yet, to further minimize the vulnerabilities in our
aviation security system, more needs to be done. AdditionalGAO-01-1166T Aviation Security
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United States. General Accounting Office. Aviation Security: Terrorist Acts Illustrate Severe Weaknesses in Aviation Security, text, September 20, 2001; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc289848/m1/3/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.