Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing. Jihadists never go on furlough.
At Los Angeles International Airport, two dry ice bombs exploded this week, and two others were found in a restricted area of the airport. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the devices “appeared to be outside the terminal near planes where employees such as baggage handlers and others work on the aircraft and its cargo.”
It’s been more than a year since watchdogs warned Capitol Hill that our Homeland Security bureaucracy was neglecting these very areas of our airports. Grandmas, babies and war heroes are groped, manhandled and humiliated in the name of transportation safety. But untold numbers of ground personnel still have easy, breezy access to airplanes and luggage.
In August, seven baggage handlers at JFK Airport were arrested after being videotaped stealing jewelry, cash, watches and computers from passenger luggage. In June, a baggage handler at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport was arrested after using his credentials to bypass airport security and carry backpacks containing what he believed were drugs and guns onto commercial flights.
“I’m going to tell you right now that the next incident is going to come from the ground,” Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) testified last spring. “It’s going to come from the shadow of the aircraft, not from the terminal. I’m telling you that.”
Yet we’re still vulnerable to the old tried-and-true scheme of sending hijackers aboard planes to take them down. The US Airline Pilots Association spelled it all out in a memo obtained by WTSP Tampa Bay reporter Mike Deeson last week.
“Bringing down an airliner continues to be the Gold Standard of terrorism,” the memo warned US Airways pilots. “If anyone thinks that our enemies have ‘been there, done that’ and are not targeting commercial aviation — think again. There have been several cases recently throughout the industry of what appear to be probes, or dry runs, to test our procedures and reaction to an inflight threat.”
The assessment bluntly described “a group of Middle-Eastern males” who boarded a flight at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, for Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 2. Onboard, the men made “a scene”: running toward the flight deck door, loudly opening and shutting overhead bins, and making what appeared to be a coordinated attempt to distract flight attendants. Federal air marshals were concerned enough about the behavior to “make their presence known.” The memo notes that a security search found “evidence of tampering” on the plane.
It’s just the latest suspected dry run since the 9/11 attacks:
- In May 2011, Yemeni national Rageh Ahmed Mohammed al-Murisi rushed the cockpit door aboard American Airlines Flight 1561 shrieking, “Allahu akbar!” at the top of his lungs more than 30 times. Federal prosecutors deemed him a “significant threat.”
- In July 2011, Saudi national Saleh Ali Alramakh caused United Airlines Flight 944 from Chicago to Germany to divert to Cleveland after violating airline-security rules during a bizarre meltdown. He locked himself in the bathroom when passengers were supposed to be seated, scuffled with flight attendants and had to be restrained by the flight crew and other passengers.
- In 2010, Pakistani national Muhammad Abu Tahir was sentenced to prison after disrupting AirTran Airways’ Atlanta to San Francisco Flight 39. He defied flight attendants and locked himself in the bathroom; the plane was diverted to Denver.
- In December 2009, of course, failed underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit with skivvies loaded with plastic explosives.
- In 2006, US and British officials acknowledged al Qaeda dry-run plans involving operatives smuggling liquid explosives onto planes through their carry-on luggage.
- And in August 2001, a month before 9/11, actor James Woods witnessed four suspicious Middle Eastern males on an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Woods shared his fears with the pilot and filed a report with the FAA. His warning was ignored. Years later, the feds confirmed it was indeed a dry run and that 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was on Woods’ flight.
Feckless feds keep admonishing the rest of us to “say something” if we “see something.” But what good will it do if they’re asleep at the wheel, blind to corruption and deaf to jihad?