9/11 commissioner: Threat of airplane suicide bombing has increased

A member of the 9/11 commission told House lawmakers Wednesday that the risk of an airline passenger detonating a suicide bomb has increased as a result of security precautions to prevent hijackings.

"Now that the whole protocol of dealing with hijackings makes the concept of gaining control of an airplane far more difficult, the likelihood of a suicide bombing is commensurately higher," 9/11 commissioner and former Navy secretary John Lehman told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation.

Several members of the committee expressed concern that the Transportation Security Administration is not doing enough to screen passengers for explosives, especially plastic explosives that are not detected by hand wands or metal detectors.

"If someone is wearing a plastic explosive belt around their middle, you won't find it with the wand," said subcommittee ranking member Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. "They're not going to embed it with metal, because they don't want to wound anybody; they want to take the plane down."

TSA Administrator David Stone said testing indicated that screening for explosives was an area that needed enhancement. As a result, the agency launched a pilot program at five airports around the country to test explosives trace detection portals. The locations are Tampa International Airport in Florida; T.F. Green State Airport in Rhode Island; Greater Rochester International Airport in New York; San Diego International Airport in California; and Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport in Mississippi.

The GE EntryScan3 portals analyze air for traces of explosive material and will be evaluated for effectiveness in airport environments. The tests will be conducted for 30 to 45 days at each airport.

DeFazio said it will take years to get these portals out to all airports, and asked what, if anything, is being done in the interim. Stone said TSA is reviewing whether to increase the percentage of passengers who are checked for traces of explosives when they are tagged for secondary screening.

Several committee members said they want TSA to be more aggressive.

"I think there's a tremendous frustration on the part of this committee, in particular, that we put some things in place," said Rep. Sue Kelly, R-N.Y. "They may not be perfect, but it's time to put some things in place now to cover the fragile areas of the air transportation system. I think the public deserves that, and I think you've seen that frustration voiced from this committee."

Stone also said TSA is in the final stages of developing a computer system to check airline passengers' biographical information against databases of suspected terrorists. The system will replace the now-defunct Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System, which the Homeland Security Department scrapped in July due to privacy and technical concerns.

"I believe what we will roll out here in the coming weeks will specifically address the 9/11 commission report and also reduce the number of passengers at our nation's airports that currently are selected for secondary screening," Stone said.

He added that up to 16 percent of 2 million daily airline travelers are selected for secondary screening, which, with better databases, TSA hopes to reduce to about 5 percent. Stone also said TSA plans to take over management of so-called "no-fly" and "selectee" airline passenger watch lists.

Lehman, however, said those lists are incomplete.

"Today, these lists do not include all of the known terrorists and do not include a rapid sharing of suspected possible terrorists that the intelligence community and its many different agencies develops because the obstacles to sharing [information] remain virtually as high as they were at 9/11," he said.

Some lawmakers also pressed TSA to develop a comprehensive plan for protecting the transportation sector. Stone said his agency would have a strategic plan in place by the end of the year, followed by specific plans for each transportation mode.