"Best" US airports unsafe at any speed
Orlando International Airport’s designation as being the country’s most secure commercial airport has a dubious distinction. Its “a title akin to best surfer in Alaska,” wrote The Orlando Sentinel.
A furor over a disclosure of gun-and-drug smuggling by airport workers prompted the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority to spend $5 million on security upgrades.
“That’s how Orlando became only the second of more than 400 US airports to order mandatory, 24-hour screening of all employees entering the flight line and other secure areas,” said the newspaper.
As the country’s 13th-busiest airport, Orlando handled nearly 1,000 flights a day and about 36 million passengers last year.
Yet guns and drugs elude detection despite the airport’s best efforts, Orlando and Puerto Rico officials conceded.
Puerto Rican police officers are working with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “to resolve the problem of arms and drugs that are bought here and sent through the airport to Puerto Rico,” said Pedro Toledo, the island’s police superintendent.
If guns can get through Orlando’s beefed-up security, imagine what may be happening at the 400-plus airports without mandatory employee screening, travel-safety experts say.
“Our security system remains extremely vulnerable,” said Charles Slepian, an aviation-security consultant in New York City. He added:
“Keep in mind the story about the cat that jumped in someone’s suitcase and made it through security. I suggest a live animal is much easier to recognize than guns and explosives.”
More than six years after the Sept.11 terrorist attacks, the federal government acknowledges security loopholes at airports nationwide.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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