Small airports play crucial role in aviation security

As people passed through the security checkpoint at the Charlot-tesville-Albemarle Regional Air-port, a man in a college sweatshirt watched.
Passengers removed their shoes, opened their bags, separated gels and stepped through a metal detector.
Officials never did approach the man in the sweatshirt — a reporter for The Daily Progress — as he moved about the terminal over the course of about two hours, monitoring operations from points near the checkpoint and scrawling observations on a notepad.

Passenger checkpoints form a crucial line of defense against terrorism, highlighted Christmas Day, when, authorities say a Nigerian man toted explosives onto an airliner. That has spurred talk of improving security technology.
Less visible but not less essential, security experts say, is the role of regional airports in aviation security. People who board planes at airports such as Charlottesville-Albemarle have penetrated the system. They can work their way to any major airport in the country, and from there, board an aircraft without confronting another checkpoint.

A team of journalists recently observed operations at checkpoints inside four regional airports — Charlottesville-Albemarle, Shenandoah Valley in Weyers Cave, Lynchburg and Tri-Cities in Blountsville, Tenn., outside Bristol. The group utilized tips from Steve Elson, a former Federal Aviation Administration counterterrorism team member regarded among the nation’s leading experts on aviation security.
In some cases, checkpoints appeared unwatched during down times. In another, a restaurant worker repeatedly walked around a checkpoint without undergoing screening. Neither activity was seen in Charlottesville. In all cases, reporters found they could watch checkpoints largely undisturbed, in the same fashion a terrorist might case an operation.

Some airport directors tasked with overseeing security beyond the checkpoints said that a lack of interaction between authorities and reporters could have indicated only that reporters hadn’t behaved suspiciously.
“It wouldn’t be particularly unusual to have a passenger sitting in the lobby that long,” said Patrick Wilson, executive director at Tri-Cities, where a reporter spent four hours observing the checkpoint.
But Elson said the ability of reporters to gain views of checkpoints and observe operations for extended periods represents a weakness in the system.
“Bad guys conduct surveillance,” he said.
This looms larger in the minds of some security experts than more glamorous ideas, such as adding full-body scanners, the controversial machines around which national discussion has swirled since the Christmas Day bombing attempt.
President Barack Obama earlier this month proposed adding 1,000 full-body scanners at the nation’s airports along with additional explosives detection equipment at a cost of $734 million.
It’s unclear where the scanners would go — there are just 40 in use now at 19 airports, including Richmond International — but there are thousands of checkpoint lanes to cover and 449 commercial airports under the watch of the Transportation Security Administration.

Almost two-thirds, or 294, of those airports are like Charlottesville-Albemarle, Category III and IV facilities, mostly regional airports generating low passenger traffic, according to federal reports. While new security technology makes its way every day into the nation’s largest airports, many mid-sized and small airports never see those new machines.
And Elson is careful to point out that even minor flaws can be exploited and can pose a major threat when they’re peppered throughout a far-flung aviation security network.
“They can do whatever they want with the full-body scans or the pat-downs or whatever at Dulles or [John F. Kennedy international airports],” said Elson, of Phoenix, who as a member of the FAA’s so-called Red Team in the 1990s tested airport security. “But if a terrorist can find a way into the system somewhere else, it’s just as good. All the terrorist has to do is find that weakness.”
“And that,” he added, “is very easy to do.”

When smaller is better

Security officials emphasize what they call layering, meaning that one component of security backs another, but Elson contends airports are more like Swiss cheese, one hole after another.
The operations are vast, covering hundreds of acres even at small facilities and thousands of acres at larger airports.
Passengers funnel in through the security checkpoints staffed by TSA screeners.
At regional airports such as Charlottesville-Albemarle, Shenandoah Valley, Lynchburg and Tri-Cities, the small number of checkpoint lanes at least reduces access points. Charlottesville, for instance, has only one.

“Sometimes, you’ll find that regional airports are actually better just by their nature,” said Bogdan Dzakovic, a former federal air marshal who like Elson once led an FAA counterterrorism unit. “But not everybody understands just how important they are.”
And passenger traffic at regional airports adds up. More than 10 million passengers enplaned at Category III and IV airports in 2008, almost equal to the numbers at Dulles and LaGuardia in New York and higher than at airports such as Chicago Midway and Ronald Reagan Washington Na-tional, according to FAA statistics. Almost 170,000 enplaned in Charlottesville.
In almost every case, Elson said, the weaknesses are consistent at airports large and small.
Door-lock keypads should have covers and nobody should be able to watch as passengers go through a checkpoint, Elson said.

He recounted a recent layover at Chicago O’Hare. During his wait, he said, he bought a sandwich, found a bench and started dissecting the quality of security and the technological equipment used to bolster safety, the same way journalists at the Virginia newspapers checked security at regional airports.
“I just parked my butt there for 20 minutes and watched,” Elson said. “And that told me how I could beat that machine and get a weapon through it.”
Even temporary fixes with cheap materials would make big differences, he said. A start, Elson said, would be to partition checkpoints so that they could not be cased.
“[I]f I couldn’t see the checkpoint I’d never have noticed that weakness,” he said, “and how much does it cost? Not much. Cardboard, duct tape, sticks and strings.”
Elson charged that the TSA’s thick bureaucracy has prevented simple, necessary changes from taking place. Though the agency is relatively new — it was formed after 9/11 — it employs some 50,000 people.
Repeated efforts to get comments from TSA officials — including Annie Nelson, the federal security director charged with overseeing the Charlottes-ville, Shenandoah Valley and Lynchburg regional airports — were unsuccessful.
The TSA, Elson said, has “made things worse. They’ve got people running things who don’t know anything about security. It’s a joke. We’re not safer.”

Hands-on security

At each of the four regional airports investigated by the newspapers in Charlottesville, Waynes-boro, Lynchburg and Bristol, security screeners appeared focused and attentive.
In Charlottesville, screeners became involved in conversation during lulls and appeared in some cases not to initially notice passengers arriving at the checkpoints at the end of down time. Once traffic began flowing again, screeners seemed to regain focus.
Occasionally, passengers were pulled aside for additional screenings. As the rush of traffic intensified, screeners approached passengers with an authoritative but pleasant manner, alerting one passenger to a dropped pen, offering another the chance to finish a drink before walking through.
The scenes at Shenandoah Valley, Lynchburg and Tri-Cities were similar. Screeners meticulously followed passengers through checkpoints, conducted apparently random patdowns and appeared to be focused as traffic through the checkpoint increased.

At Tri-Cities, a frosted glass wall separated the checkpoint from passenger exit lanes. The new wall and a cluster of plants and signs placed in front of the hallway’s main entrance blocked the view of the checkpoint. To gain a clearer view, a reporter had to stand directly in front of the checkpoint.
That covers a point of emphasis for Elson.
“You have to set these checkpoints up so they can’t be cased. That’s just crucial.”
Not everyone who passed through the checkpoint at Tri-Cities faced screening. An employee at a restaurant located in the gates area beyond the checkpoint walked around it several times without facing screening.
Whatever the airports’ vulnerabilities, incidents are rare, officials said.
In several instances at Charlottesville, people have remembered upon approaching the checkpoint that they were carrying concealed weapons, said Barbara Hutchinson, executive director of the airport. Those incidents required a call to the FBI to allow agents to appraise the situation, Hutchinson said. None of those cases proved serious.

At each of the airports, the level of technology is low compared with the equipment found at international airports. The issue mostly is about efficiency, officials said. Smaller airports allow for more hands-on security, something Elson called vital.
“We do not have the level of traffic that would begin to approach the criteria for installation of [machines that let screeners see through passengers’ clothing],” Hutchinson said.
Elson, Dzakovic and other aviation security experts argue that the human component of security is far more important than technology.
“People are the most essential part of effective security,” Dzakovic said. “Technology is a tool. People make it work.”

Even with billions of dollars and blank checks, an airport never will be 100 percent secure, Elson said. Authorities’ task is to manage and reduce risk, he said.
Hiring people experienced in security is essential, he said.
“You don’t know anything if you don’t get out in the weeds,” Elson said. “I’d like to see people with some security experience, and I mean actual security experience. … The people that are out there every day doing the job know best.”

Ted Strong is a staff writer for The Daily Progress and Chase Purdy reports for The News Virginian in Waynesboro. Mac McLean of the Bristol Herald Courier; Carrie J. Sidener and Bryan Gentry of the Lynchburg News & Advance; and Lee Wolverton of The News Virginian contributed to this story.