Security Roundup

Air Safety Week,  July 2, 2007  

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The UK's newly-created Border and Immigration Agency's new biometric passport scanning system has already caused "chaos" at Stansted and Luton Airports since its inception. The government is unfazed by reports that processing time has doubled for arriving passengers. On at least one occasion, law enforcement has threatened immigration officials with prosecution on public order charges because of overcrowding. Previously, security personnel simply swiped passports through a scanner which read a series of encoded letters and numbers. Now, the older passports are still swiped, but require additional input to verify identity.

Date: 26-Jun
Incident: Department of Homeland Security told European Union officials that
visitors from European nations as well as other nations will soon have to give
10 digital fingerprints when they enter the U.S. Entry may also require other
biometric data, such as eye-retina and facial scans. A pilot project is planned
for 10 major U.S. airports starting late this year.

Date: 25-Jun
Incident: A shootout erupted between police and criminals at Rio de Janeiro's
Tom Jobim International Airport with the result that a runway was temporarily
closed and three people died. Two airports in Sao Paulo also suspended their
flights to Rio for up to 30 minutes. Last week the Brazilian government fired 14
air traffic controllers and had two of their leaders arrested for staging a work
slowdown that lasted six days and snarled air traffic with delays and
cancellations. Monday, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva publicly
declared his nation's air traffic control system to be safe, just a few hours
after a near deadly incursion onto a Sao Paulo runway.

Date: 24-Jun
Incident: Chicago TV station WBBM-2 recently conducted an undercover
investigation at O'Hare Airport, and uncovered missing ID badges and cleaning
crews performing airliner bomb checks. In the instance cited, a flight crew was
told the aircraft had been cleared by bomb-sniffing dogs prior to takeoff. It
was revealed later that not only was that not the case, but it was the cleaning
crew that performed the security check. A total of 3,807 ID badges for airport
secure area entry were found to be missing. Mesa Airlines now faces a fine of
$47,000 as a result of the report.

Date: 24-Jun
Incident: The State Department is trying to lure diplomats back to the US over
the next two months to help clear a massive backlog in passport applications.
Unable to cope with nearly 3 million backed up applications and thousands more
that are pouring in daily, the department has issued an urgent all-points global
appeal seeking volunteers to return to the United States at government expense
in August and July to deal with the problem. The normal six-week wait has nearly
doubled to an average of 10 to 12 weeks. Expediting applications costs an extra
$60 per person.

Date: 23-Jun
Incident: A Midwest Airlines CRJ200, flight SKW2502, Minneapolis to Milwaukee,
returned to the terminal after a hidden knife was found aboard. Passengers were
searched and questioned before the flight was allowed to proceed.

Date: 21-Jun
Incident: An off-duty Benton County sheriff's deputy sustained a shoulder injury
while stopping an out-of-control passenger who was trying to open an emergency
exit inflight on US Airways Flight 78 from Phoenix to Seattle.

Date: 20-Jun
Incident: An Onur Air Airbus travelling to Istanbul from Diyarbakir in southeast
Turkey was diverted today to the capital Ankara after receiving a bomb warning.
Turkish authorities are on enhanced alert following an increase in attacks by
Kurdish separatist guerrillas in southeast Turkey. Diyarbakir is the largest
city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast region.

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