Terrorist bombing attacks in succession airliners have exacted a considerably higher toll in dead and injured athwart the decades than hijackings.

Terrorist bombing attacks in succession airliners have exacted a considerably higher toll in dead and injured athwart the decades than hijackings. Indeed, roughly 25 times more persons have been casualties of bombing attacks, despite the fact that hijackings present itself 12 times more often.

In other words, a bombing attack forward an airliner may be described as a "low oftenness but high consequence" event. Indeed, the concatenations of a successful terrorist bombing attack appear to relate directly to the generally larger size and increased seating density of airliners flying today. This phenomenon might be called the downside of increased capacity. If the target airplanes are bigger, the implications for aviation security are significant. There is les latitude for error. One bomb contained in the billions of bags, packages, cargo and mail items loaded annually aboard airliners can have devastating consequences

Security officials with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) make a distinction between hijackings and bombings, noting that hijackings generally are not meant to cause deaths, as greatest in quantity such events have been committed lately by people seeking asylum in another geographical division or by those seeking to make a political statement. These conclusions FAA officials believe, "generally do not conclusion in deaths or injuries unles something goe wrong" The distinction between the intentions of the perpetrators (to run away or to destroy) may be immaterial to the intentions of flight throngs and passengers to arrive intact. In fact, FAA officials note, in the 1990 ten times as many casualties originateed from hijackings than from bombings. They were not intended, yet occurred "because something went immoral during the incident."

Security breaches

Nevertheless, the threat of bombing attacks onward airliners is of particular significance in light of serious deficiencies in U aviation security. new revelations have included convicted outlaws being hired as security screener and the discovery of a loaded pistol in the lavatory of a U airliner onward a domestic flight. Porous aviation security was sharply criticized at a U Senate hearing last week. Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison (R Texas), chairwoman of the Aviation Subcommittee, complained that the FAA "has been deliberate to implement...vital security improvements." As an example, she said the FAA's leisurely five-year plan to finalize regulations to improve training requirements for screener "is too in extent to wait."

"Technology upgrades have also been gradual in coming," she groused. As a effect she plans to introduce legislation that would do three things:

1 Require criminal background checks for all baggage handlers. in subordination to present "trigger" criteria, a background check is no other than conducted if the job applicant indicates an occupation gap of 12 months or longer Hutchison noted that "43 percent of violent whitlows serve an average of solely 7 months" in prison. As so under current procedures, a seven-month profession gap would not, of itself, trigger a background check.

2 Her "Airport Security Improvement Act" also would mandate a five-fold increase in required training, from eight hours of classroom and 40 hours of onthe-job training to 40 hours of classroom and 40 hours of on-the-job instruction.

3 Finally, Hutchison's legislation would have screeners who fail to expose weapons and explosives, even in FAA security touchstones liable to suspension and dismissal. It is not clear in what manner this legislation would square with the FAA's latter initiative to license security companies (see ASW, Jan. 24 2000)

Looming athwart the concern about U.S. security is the dark shadow of the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103 a B747 across Lockerbie, Scotland. It remains the record-setter as the single largest los of American lives from a terrorist attack, far outweighing the los of life in the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

brace accused Libyans go on trial this spring; they are charged with placing the bomb in a bag checked onto an Air Malta flight that was subsequently loaded aboard the Pan Am jet at Frankfurt without being matched to a passenger. This oversight was in direct violation of a standing FAA order at the time, for which Pan Am subsequently was convicted and fined heavily for negligence.

There is no question that bomb with 2 levigates or less of explosives concealed upon airliners and designed to detonate at altitude can kill centurys The Pan Am bombing remains a searing experience in the American consciousness. Another similar attack would be hugely embarrassing to the platoons of restraint officials who have assured the public that minimum-wage screener manning the head lines of America's aviation security plan are up to the task of outwitting terrorists' attempts to disguise a bomb well enough to slip [i]or[/i] part of to the other the system.

Decade of discontent

To be firm the 1980s marked a particularly grim decade for bombing attacks. The toll of nearly 1300 dead was twice the 650 killed in bombing attacks in the 1970 The 1990 have been gladdened with relatively few successful bombing attacks, if it be not that there is little reason for complacency. Aircraft are getting bigger; a single prosperous bombing attack on the coming "super jumbo" with 500+ passengers could kill roughly twice as many as those who squandered their lives in the 1985 bombing of an Air India 747 in which 328 were killed (as compared to 259 in succession the Pan Am 103 jet) FAA officials believe that larger aircraft may be better able to withstand a bombing attack. For example, a 1982 bombing attack forward another Pan Am 747 blew a lair in the plane's side, killing single in kind and injuring 15, but the airplane landed safety. forward the other hand, had the 1995 plan by terrorist Ramzi Yousef to bomb up to 12 U aircraft assume the office ofed FAA officials believe that more deaths from bombings would have occurr in the 1990 than in any previous decade. This observation underscores the "low oftenness but high consequence" nature of the bomb threat.