Impersonating a Pilot

Air Safety Week, March 21, 2005

The Illinois House of Representatives passed a bill on March 11 to increase safety at airports. Specifically, it makes it a felony for a person to gain access to restricted areas of the airport while dressed in a pilot's uniform if that person is not a pilot. Multiple Web sites on the Internet sell uniforms, but the sites do not require consumers to prove that they work for an airline. Gov. Rod Blagojevich strongly supported the bill, and recently wrote letters to the U.S. Senate and to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) outlining his concern that terrorists may be able to easily obtain pilot's uniforms on the Internet.

At airport security checkpoints, pilots are required to go through metal detectors and they must present valid identification, but the identification card does not feature a biometric identifier, a point that some pilots groups regard as a major deficiency (see ASW, March 14).

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