u.s. looks at which tech proposals
Government deluged with
ideas for airports, airliners
By Tract Watson

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the irises of their eyes. Both body
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Newideas for alrIine security
In the wake of Sept 11, federal regulators are mulling thousands ofproposals designed to make air travel safer. Some
ideas, such as stronger cockpit doors, already have become law. Most, however, are still on the drawing board

TermmM
Iris scanner

USATODAY

Would compare a passenger:S iris,
which is as unique as a flngerprint, to
tl'E Image OIl the passenger's ID card.

Remote-controUed flights. Bul-

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Would allow contioIJers OIl the ground to steer
ajet to a safe lancji:ng if pilots were disabled

letproof cockpit doors. Eye scanners at airport gates.

Air security
As federal aviation officials ponder how to make air travel safer after the Sept 11 attacks, they've

been deluged with more £han
30,000 ideas such as these for applying technology to airport and
airline secwity.
Ideas for new safety gizmos and
smart security systems have roUed
in not just from companies with

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dollar signs in their eyes. Gtizem G.1rftoy: Fav<xs'
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who are trying to be helpful have use ofblometric:'0l0gy;

also offered suggestions since
President Bush on Sept 27 adv0cated some technological ad~
vances in security as a way of restoring public confidence in
commercialairtravel.-

And the government is taking
them serious~ The Federal Aviation Administration is wading
throuWI the proposals it has received and plans to require the airlines and airportS to adopt the best

ones. The Transportation Depart-

ment is doing the same. Bush has
set aside $500 million for airlines to
spend on security techno~ indoomgtbrtifyingjet c~.
Among some of the other ideas
that are being reviewed:
....Stuo.guns. United Airlines has
proposectgiving all afits pilots stun
guns, which can subdue assaj!ants

with jolts of electricity. Stun guns
are now banned aboard planes.
~ Full-body scans. These modified X-ray machines can look
through clothing to see weapons,
drugs and other items. The Customs Service uses them to screen
some passengers arriving from
overseas.
~ Video cameras in the cabin.
They'd allow pilots to monitor the
rest of the pfane without leaving
the cockJ?it Delta has installed test
cameras mone ofits planes.
~ Strobe lights and sirens in the
jet that could distract hijackers.
Although few dispute that
spending more money on people,
such as baggage screeners, can
make travel safer, aviation experts

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Ahigh-tech X-1dY that can
spot weapons and

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Olckpit or cabin

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also say that machines like these
can do things people can't
"Machines don't t distracted, 6
says Steve Lu~ ~ad of the security committee for the Airline Pilots Association. "They don't get
tired, they don't need a break. and
they don't need to go to the bathroom. Technology's great"
Although lucKey and other experts share the president's hope
that technology can make air travel safer, they also dismiss some
suggested fixes, such as Bush's suggestion for remote-control pilotmg. as naive. Other ideas, such as
building tamper-proof transponders or ID cards, have prpvoked
disagreement'over their etfectiveness and alfordability.
Even taking seemingly simple
steps as strengthening cockpit
doors, which Bush advocated as
one of the first steps of applying
technology to malre flying safer, is
not so easy.
For years, the FAA required
cockpit doors to be light enough to
breaK through in case pilots had to
be rescued. Duurs also had to allow air to pass during a sudden decompressIon, so most were de·
signed to swing open or allow a
panel to flip open under pressure.
Such doors could be easily battereddowlt
After the hijackings, the FAA
gave airlines 18 months to make it
harder to storm cockpits.
It will take clever engineering to
design doors that can stop a 250-

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subdue hijackers.

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New wiring or roltware could guarantee that I
on!ypilotscoukl turnolfthesedevices, which j
give ~taiIs ofajeJ;'s
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Could disorient
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hijackers or unruly passengers.

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pound man yet stiII give way in
case of eme~cy,eJg):erts say. But
they also say it's possible.
So far, the nation's largest: airlines
have !;lut new locks and bars on
cockpit doors as a stopgap measure. Only Alaska Airlines, which
flies on the WestCoast, and JetBlue
Airways. which flies mostly out of
New York's Kennedy International
AirPort, have started instalfmg
doors lined with material used in
bulletproof vests on aU their craft.
It's not clear yet whether the doors
wiH meet FM standards.
tess feasible, experts say, is
Bush's suggestion that technology
be developed to allow controUers
on the ground to land jet> if trouble:such as a hijacking. broke out
~I don't know anybody who's
tbought about it 11.1ld who thinks
it's a good idea," says john Hansman, a professor of aeronautics
and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.
Hansman and others say that
such a ground-control system
would be just as vulnerable to ter·
rorists as airplanes are - and to
computer hackers as well. Security
experts also fear that the takeover
of an aircraft's flight controls could

desperate hijackers to start
.. passengers on the plane to
getw theywant
In addition, less than half of the
nation's commercial fleet is
equipped Ibr tIUs rechnique. Brmging the fleet up to snuffwould cost
billions of dollars, experts say; And
controllers would need extensive
training to handle the task.
'1hat's one for the reject bin."
says Robert Poole, director of
transportation studies at the Reason Pub6c Policy Institute, a free·
market think tank.
Discarding obviously unworkable ideas is easy. Much harder is
decid!ng whatto do about technolo~ that has generated both ait·
iasm and enthusiasm. For example, Bush has said that the
government would fund rt:search
on transponders that cannot be
switched offin the cockpit.
Transponders, which are norma
ly kept: on during flights. identify jets to radat The Sept;. 11 hijackers turned them olfso that ~und
controllers couldn't see the Jets' altitude or identification codes.
The recommendation sounds
simple enough. Bijt such a step
should be approached cautiously,

5

parts are as unique as fingerprints.
Similar systems already are in

place for passengers entering the
Amstenlam airport from ;iliroad.
London's Heathrow Airport will
soon start a trial of iris-Unked ID
cards for Americans and Canadians
who travel to Britain frequen~
At. a congressional hearing last
month. FAA Administrator Jane
Garvey called this body·based
technology; kno'wn as biometrics,
~one I'd like to see aU ofus embrace
and advance in an even more aggressive fashion."
The Air Transport Association,
the trade group for airlines. goes a
. step fwtheI: It says such ID cards
couk! be linked to databases held
by the FBl the Immigration and
Naturalization service and other
security agencies. That way anyone who's had any trouble with the
law would be stopped before get·
ting on a plane.
~If you don't subscribe to the
voluntary approach. you're going
to go through a very rigid, invasive
search, says Michael Wascom, the
association's vice president of
conununications.
That's precisely the problem, according to opp'onents.
~~le will eft'ectively be coerced into getting these cards to
avoid intrusive, sometimes demeaning searches," says Barry
Steinhardt. associate director of
the American Ovil Uberties Union.
Besides, say Steinhardt and
others. the purpose of the cards
could easily be Undermined. It's so
easy to concoct a new identity that
criminals could get a biometric ID
card under a fake name and legal
history, Steinhardt says. Others
point out that such a system probably wouldn't have prevented the
5epl11 attacks.
"Seventeen ofthe nineteen Sept
11 terrorists were ordinary, Iawabiding citizens until after they
were cin the planeS,6 says james
Wayman, director of the National
Biometrics Test Center at San jose
Stote U _ "They had Social
Security cards and frequent-flier
numbers. How could any biometric device have stopped them?"
Even the loudest critics don't
doubt that some technologies can
Improve safety. The AClU for example, doesn't oppose the use of
biometric ID cards to bar access to
areas olf-Iimit to the public. Such
cards are in use at O'Hare international Airport in Chicago.

says Charles Higgins, head of a
newly created diVision of Boeing
that'M:lli<s on security technoiogy.
For ~le, what would nappen if a redesigned transponder
shorted out and began sparking?
In modem jets. pilots can shut off
power to devices to prevent fires.
Should the transponder be given
different safety standards than the
rest ofthe electronics?
And What about the hazards of
rewiring the cockpit? Wiring is
one of aviation's top safety concerns. and work on Jet wirmg has
led to numerous safety incidents.
Safety officials say the idea is feasi·
ble, but they warn thata rushed effort to redo the wiring of thousands ofjets could cause trouble.
Critics also have strong grievances about a technology that has
won widespread favor from airlines and some security experts:
voluntary identification cards.
Passengers would get one by undergoing a strict background
check. Card holders courd then
breeze throll.l!Jl the airport with·
out being su"bjeeted to rigorous
searches. Automated airport scanners would verify cardholders'
identity by checking their palms or Contributing: Alan levin

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