Air Safety Week's Breach Report

Air Safety Week,  April 10, 2006  

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DATE & SITE: December 24, 2005 -- Norfolk Int'l Airport (ORF), Va.
AREA*: 3
CIRCUMSTANCES: A passenger in the departure gate area had shotgun shells in a
carry-on bag.
RESULT: The incident was first publicized last week after a local TV news
station obtained an incident report through the federal Freedom of Information
Act. Another passenger originally tipped off security officials, who saw the
first passenger pull the shells out of his bag and put them in his pocket. The
passenger was allowed to board and the shells were destroyed.

DATE & SITE: March 22 -- Lambert-St. Louis Int'l Airport (STL), Mo.
AREA*: 4
CIRCUMSTANCES: A 33-yr.-old Chicago resident, Catherine ("Cat") Chow, stowed
away aboard an American flight.
RESULT: Chow was the only standby for a flight to Austin-Bergstrom Int'l (AUS).
Upon learning the flight was full, she snuck past gate agents, boarded the
plane, and hid in the plane's rest room. Airport police and the FBI were waiting
in Austin. Chow, who was trying to attend Austin's South by Southwest arts
festival, was placed in jail and faces federal charges. Editor's note: Chow's
attempt to remain undetected resembled a game of "musical chairs." When another
passenger knocked on the door of the rest room where Chow initially hid, she
came out and took his seat. Eventually, the man's wife made Chow move. After
Chow's next round of seat switching, a flight attendant finally realized what
was going on.

DATE & SITE: March 25 -- Johannesburg Int'l Airport (JNB), South Africa
AREA*: 7
CIRCUMSTANCES: About 6-10 robbers armed with AK-47s stole about $16.5 million in
US dollars as the cash was being unloaded from a South African Airways Boeing
747.
RESULT: Two armed men held up security personnel and police who were guarding
the aircraft, while up to another six gang members held up guards at one of the
airport's gates. Right after the robbery, a police official said it was
especially disturbing that the robbers gained access to a high-security area  of
the airport. Editor's note: From the beginning, police also suspected an inside
job. Five suspects were eventually arrested for the robbery itself, as were
three airport officials for allegedly abetting the crime. The incident is also
causing much hand-wringing and public debate in South Africa about the state of
airport security across the country.

DATE & SITE: March 28 -- Orlando Int'l Airport (MCO), Fla.
AREA*: 3
CIRCUMSTANCES: A passenger who set off an alarm was sent to a holding area to
wait for a secondary screening. Moments later, she was gone.
RESULT: A checkpoint was closed and departures were delayed on two airsides.
Because a TSA screener recalled that the passenger was headed for a Southwest
Airlines flight on Airside 2, Airside 4 was reopened after 5 minutes, and non-
Southwest flights from Airside 2 were allowed to proceed after the first five
minutes. Editor's note: As long as suspected terrorists are honest about what
flights they're heading for, this partial-reopening approach should be fairly
reliable. Similar incidents -- where passengers leave the checkpoint before
they're fully screened -- are happening fairly frequently, which may be due to
passengers' increasing impatience with security procedures.

DATE & SITE: April 4 -- Geneva Int'l Airport (GVA), Switzerland
AREA*: 4
CIRCUMSTANCES: A journalist carried two knives in her carry-on aboard her
London-bound flight.
RESULT: It was also revealed that Swiss army knives, which would be forbidden
past the checkpoints in most other countries' airports, including those in the
United States, have been on sale airport shops located past the checkpoints in
the secure departure gate area.

* Codes where security incident originated: 1 - Roadway/parking lot/off airport
2 - Public ticket lobby/baggage claim  3 - Security checkpoint 4 - Sterile
concourse/gate area 5 - Checked baggage/cargo screening  6 - Inside aircraft 7 -
Airside operations area  8 - Airport perimeter  9 - Unknown Compiled by Air
Safety Week from various news sources

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