Are terrorists 'casing' planes?

Security experts continue to be concerned that terrorists are monitoring and probing the nation's aviation system in order to uncover vulnerabilities and prepare for another attack.

As often as twice a week, major airlines receive reports of suspicious behavior, according to industry sources - things like passengers videotaping the cockpit area, spending excessive amounts of time in the lavatory, or suddenly rushing to the front of the plane and then backing off.

Despite rising concern about security, however, pilots and other industry sources say there is still is no single and standardized system for airline employees to report such suspicious behavior directly to government investigators.

While the Federal Air Marshal Service does have a secure website to report such things, many airlines require that reports go to them first for vetting before they're sent along.

In addition, industry insiders say that flight crews need more training to alert them how to identify the difference between unusual but innocent behavior and "operational surveillance."

Such training and awareness could give security agencies and flight crews the intelligence they need to thwart another attack. Indeed, the Al Qaeda terrorists that commandeered four planes on Sept. 11 spent more than a year analyzing how the airlines and their security apparatus operated. Several took what were believed to be "casing" flights in the summer of 2001.

"The flight crew should be the eyes and ears of aviation security," says Chris Witkowski, director of air safety, health, and security for the Association of Flight Attendants. "They need training."

These concerns are the latest in a series of vulnerabilities uncovered within the nation's aviation security system. An inspector general's report recently found that undercover investigators in the past year were still able to get weapons and explosives past government screeners. Another report found that three years after Sept. 11, no centralized watch list contains the names of all suspected terrorists. Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were known to the US government at the time, but they were not on its "no fly" list.

The Transportation Security Agency acknowledges that more work needs to be done to secure the nation's skies, but says it's made great strides. The key, it insists, is focusing on a multilayered approach, from improving passenger screening to securing cockpit doors to training pilots to use firearms. Its investigators are also confident that they are getting full cooperation from the airlines in terms of reporting any suspicious behavior.

"We have an excellent working relationship with the industry," says Dave Adams, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service. "There is a clear line of communication, and we are getting the information."

But sources familiar with the current system contend that it has at times prevented such reports from making it to federal security authorities. That's because of the requirement by many airlines that security concerns go to them first.

"The carriers would like information to go through them for obvious reasons," says Capt. Steve Luckey, chairman of the National Security Committee of the Air Line Pilots Association. "But unfortunately we have tracked some things that what we thought were significant issues that went into the corporate structure that didn't come out."

Security experts say that's a prescription for trouble. An odd incident at one airline may not raise concerns for its security professionals because it may be perceived as an isolated incident. If they were aware that it was also happening at other airlines, it could become more critical.

"There are potential dots here, and someone should connect them," says Brian Jenkins, a security analyst at the RAND Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif. "Anomalies may have no meaning, but anomalies in a sequence of events may."

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