[IP] Los Angeles Times:RAND Corp report -- Lines Pose Risk at LAX
Lines Pose Risk at LAX
A report urges the immediate hiring of screeners and others to reduce
long queues of passengers, a 'tempting target for terrorists.'
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer
September 25, 2004
Stepped-up screening procedures at Los Angeles International Airport
that were designed to make flying safer have created another potential
vulnerability: long lines that are a "tempting target for terrorists,"
security experts said Friday.
Rand Corp. researchers recommended in a 47-page report that airlines
and federal officials spend $4 million a year to add skycaps, ticket
agents and screeners to speed travelers through lines in terminal
lobbies and on sidewalks and into the secure gate area — where they
would be less vulnerable to attack.
"We think this should happen right away," said Donald Stevens, a senior
engineer at Santa Monica-based Rand and lead author on the highly
anticipated study.
The report found that if airlines and the federal Transportation
Security Administration, which manages screeners at the nation's
airports, hired 5% more personnel at LAX, lines and potential
fatalities could be reduced by 80%.
The wide-ranging report — which considered the potential casualties
from car bombs, mortars, snipers and surface-to-air missile attacks —
is the first public blueprint of the airport's greatest vulnerabilities
and the most cost-effective methods to fix them.
LAX, the world's fifth-busiest airport, is considered the state's top
terrorist target. An Al Qaeda plot to explode several luggage bombs in
terminals was foiled in December 1999.
The Rand report also recommends establishing permanent checkpoints at
airport entrances to search vehicles for bombs, screening cargo for
explosives and conducting background checks on all airport personnel.
Mayor James K. Hahn ordered the report in May after City Council
members threatened to hire a firm on their own to conduct a security
analysis of his $9-billion modernization plan for the airport.
The report, which focuses on current vulnerabilities, is the first of
two parts. The second part, due next spring, will consider whether
Hahn's plan makes the airport more secure.
In a briefing Friday afternoon at City Hall, the mayor stopped short of
calling for immediate implementation of Rand's proposals.
"If we can figure out ways to eliminate long lines, then we should do
that quickly," Hahn said, adding that the money would need to come from
the airlines and the federal government. "We're going to need help."
But Councilman Jack Weiss, who has focused on defending Los Angeles
from terrorism, urged the mayor to act now.
"There's no good reason not to implement this immediately," said Weiss,
who showed up uninvited at the briefing and spoke over the mayor's
objections.
The city's airport agency spent $102 million from Sept. 11, 2001,
through June 30 to improve security at LAX. Ongoing projects include a
$413-million initiative to rebuild the airport's aging baggage system,
a $57-million project to reinforce perimeter fencing, and a $42-million
effort to expand a camera surveillance system.
One of the most persistent problems at LAX involves lines in the nine
terminal lobbies and at security checkpoints.
Under new federal security rules, officials are able to process only
half as many passengers an hour through airport checkpoints as they did
before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Queues also snake outside the
terminals because truck-size explosives-detection machines eat up space
in airport lobbies.
"A luggage bomb in either the skycap line or the check-in line will
cause a significant number of fatalities and injuries," the report
said. "These bombs could be coordinated with other bombs in other
terminals, increasing the number of fatalities."
The report says that was Ahmed Ressam's plan. Ressam was arrested in
December 1999 by customs agents at a Port Angeles, Wash., border
crossing after they found explosives in the trunk of his car. He was
later convicted of plotting with Al Qaeda to bomb LAX.
Adding one ticket counter station per terminal would reduce average
line length from 75 people to 15, the Rand researchers found.
Similarly, adding one more skycap station would reduce the average line
length from 70 people to three, according to the report.
But getting help from the cash-strapped airlines, which have cut staff
across the board since the terrorist attacks, and the TSA, which had
the number of screeners it can employ capped by Congress last year, is
likely to be difficult.
"If future passenger levels at LAX call for more screeners, we will
work to that end," said Nico Melendez, a TSA spokesman. "Right now,
it's inappropriate to guess what the levels will be in two, four or six
years."
After researching 11 "attack options," Rand concluded that LAX was most
vulnerable to attacks using bombs planted in a vehicle, a piece of
luggage, or in the cargo hold of an airplane.
The specifics of the attack scenarios, such as where terrorists could
hide a luggage bomb to inflict the most casualties, were considered so
sensitive that the TSA ordered Rand to remove them from the public
version of the report. Researchers also removed the number of
fatalities they concluded could result from each scenario, saying it
was too "gruesome" to leave in.
In addition to dispersing crowds in terminals, the city could protect
LAX by spending $7 million to install permanent vehicle checkpoints and
$11 million a year to operate them at five airport entrances, the
report found. These stations could feature "simple vehicle scales that
can identify suspicious vehicles."
The mayor said he supported this idea, adding that he always wanted to
move vehicles farther away from airport terminals. "We have to look at
a way we can do that without creating traffic gridlock," he said.
The city's airport agency has installed temporary vehicle checkpoints
at LAX entrances several times over the last few years after federal
officials raised the nation's terror alert index to orange, the
second-highest level. These checkpoints backed up traffic and caused
many passengers to arrive late for flights.
Several other Rand recommendations, including screening all cargo and
enhancing background checks of airport personnel, were considered very
expensive. It would cost $111 million for new cargo-screening equipment
and $76 million a year to run it. Only a fraction of airplane cargo is
now screened. Background checks would cost $34 million a year.
Rand's conclusions parallel an earlier report.
A May 2003 Rand study, requested by U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice),
suggested that a wholesale redesign of LAX was unnecessary to do a
better job of protecting travelers.
Researchers wrote in that report that security could be bolstered by
dispersing crowds at ticket counters, checkpoints and baggage kiosks —
all highly visible targets.
Harman said she asked for that study because she wanted to know if
Hahn's airport proposal would significantly improve security. In the
eight-page report, Rand researchers found that the mayor's plan could
lead to more casualties if an attack occurred because it would
concentrate travelers at a planned centralized check-in center near the
San Diego Freeway.
After that earlier study, Weiss, Harman and other local leaders held a
series of closed-door meetings and concluded that the security aspects
of the mayor's LAX plan required additional study. Hahn gave in to
their requests in May.
Harman and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who represent
airport-area constituencies, have expressed concern that the second
half of the Rand report will not be available before the City Council
votes on the mayor's plan. The council's planning committee will hold a
hearing Wednesday on Hahn's modernization plan.
Weiss, a member of the planning committee, said he planned to press the
panel to recommend that the Rand proposals be "bumped to the head of
the line."
"Everyone's first reaction when they go to LAX is, 'How come the lines
are so long?' " Weiss said.
"The fact that this is everyone's common-sense reaction — and it's also
the security experts' common-sense reaction — is telling."
<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-
lax25sep25,1,7552879,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines>
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