Aviation security is still inadequate 12 years after terrorists planted a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103, according to experts who have monitored the U.S. government's efforts to plug holes in the system. The Federal Aviation Administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on machines that can detect explosives. Airports have stepped up background checks on new employees and locked down access to secure areas.
Airlines routinely ask passengers if their luggage has ever been out of their sight.
Progress has been substantial, but the gaps are still big enough to let through a battery-powered detonator and a small amount of plastic explosive, which was enough to take down Flight 103 in December 1988. Reports last year by the General Accounting Office, which is an investigative branch of Congress, and the inspector general of the Transportation Department found serious vulnerabilities in the control of access to secure areas and the screening of passengers and their carry-on bags. Private companies hired by the airlines generally are responsible for screening passengers and the bags they carry on board at the nation's airports. Their employees earn near the minimum wage, and most receive no health benefits. Turnover rates exceed 100 percent each year at major airports.