Last week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation reported on a new piece of legislation known as the Aviation Security Improvement Act (S. 509).The legislation, which addresses air cargo as well as passenger aviation security, includes a measure sponsored by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to provide the long-term funding to U.S. airports and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in order to "significantly improve and expedite the installation of baggage screening and explosive detection systems at the nation's airports."
According to a Commerce Committee press release about the legislation:
The Aviation Security Improvement Act (S. 509) would require the screening of all cargo on passenger airplanes within three years. The cargo screening program strikes a balance between ensuring all cargo on passenger aircraft is secure and ensuring the movement of commerce.A welcome part of the Aviation Security Improvement Act for crews is a a provision that requires the TSA -- after consultation with airline, airport and flight crew unions -- to report to Congress within 180 days of enactment on the status of establishing a process that would give flight deck and cabin crew members expedited access through screening checkpoints. A news release on the website of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) says that ALPA staff worked closely with the Committee to draft this language.
The bill also addresses passenger prescreening, a primary concern of air travelers and Congress, where passengers are mistakenly identified as a potential threat. This bill would ensure a system is in place to redress mistaken identity issues and requires the TSA to move rapidly to develop a strategic plan to test and implement an advanced passenger prescreening system.
Other provisions include lifting the 45,000 cap on the allowed number of TSA screeners, enhancing TSO screener training, and allowing TSA to purchase and distribute blast-resistant containers to carriers. The legislation also authorizes grant programs for piloting explosive detection technologies, and addresses general aviation security.
The legislation was introduced by Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Vice Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Senators Jay Rockefeller, (D-WV), Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) cosponsored the Aviation Security Improvement Act.
The Aviation Safety Improvement Act now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
Click here to read the full text of Senate Bill S. 509.
1 comments:
Since Bush has been president thousands of innocent people died needlessly in 911. Yet, neither the Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT) nor the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have lost their job. Hijacking and Terrorist attacks have traditionally accounted for about 10% of fatal accidents world-wide. This known threat existed and was well tabulated/tracked prior to 911 in world fatal accident statistics and still President Bush’s appointed a political head of the FAA that had little security or aviation experience. Neither the DOT nor FAA took the required steps necessary to keep the public and the nation safe even though the threats were known and it was their job to assure the security and safety of our sky. They operated out of fear of losing the aviation industries support for maintaining their positions and thereby allowed the nation and the traveling public to suffer needlessly. The deaths that occurred on 911 won’t even show up on the FAA’s fatal accident statistics. This is done intentionally to minimize aviation related fatalities and to give the public a false sense of security. Thus 911, like Katrina, was the result of President Bush’s Republican political appointees that had little knowledge of their appointed critical tasks.
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At first look it isn't obvious that the golfer Payne Stewart, and the Helios (2005 - 100+fatality) decompression crashes and 911 are related but from a aviation safety and security system view they are:
When a plane substantially deviates from its approved flight plan it is presently possible to have a remote pilot located in a secure simulator fly the plane to a safe landing at a sparsely populated airfield. Over 70% of all fatal air crashes occurrences are readily preventable if handled correctly.
Unfortunately, the data needed to accomplish this is locked up in the flight recorder and is utilized predominately in an autopsy mode. If the data is so important that it is necessary to discover the cause of a fatal crash it is much more important to prevent a fatal crash. Yet because of the aviation industry's partnership with the FAA and NTSB none of the flight data coming out of the recorders is available in real-time to proactively prevent fatal crashes. The inability to use the flight data in real time has jeopardized the safety and security of the traveling public and the nation. The astronauts were guided back from the moon because the data was telemetered to the ground in real-time. Once it got to the ground it was analyzed, and then via a concerted effort by experts, using simulations the proper and safe way to handle life threatening situation was accomplished. Yet this proven technique isn't utilized by the industrial/government partnership to keep our nation and air-passengers safe and secure.
One year prior to 911, I was the guest speaker at the International Aviation Safety Association meeting in NY where I spoke on how terrorists and decompression fatal crashes are preventable via remote control of a deviating aircraft using ciphered technology developed for our ballistic missiles. This technology can prevent most aviation crashes (approximately 70%) even those from mechanical problems and errors of commission and omission. At present a pilot has displayed only a fraction of the information necessary to make the right decision to prevent a crash. The pilot in many instances is seeing a problem for the first time. The aircraft data and air traffic control data isn't shared extensively so experts on handling the aircraft's problem aren’t consulted nor can the problem be simulated to aid in crash prevention. This data vacuum is responsible for most fatal crashes. For example, the Swiss Air and Alaskan Air fatal crashes could have been prevented if handled correctly.
In addition it is not only terrorists that sabotage aircraft. Commercial and Military pilots have also done it. When a pilot deviates substantially from the approved flight plan the aircraft should be safely remote piloted to a landing at a sparsely populated airport. Several years ago a rogue military pilot substantially deviated from his approved Continental United States (CONUS) flight plan and flew an A-10 aircraft loaded with bombs clandestinely across multiple states. It took two weeks to find the plane which had crashed into a Colorado mountain. The plane was eventually found but the bombs are still missing. Exhaustive searches were made but no one has a clew as to what happened to the bombs. Must we wait for a bigger disaster than 911 before any action takes place?
Everyone knowledgeable about the holes in our aviation system, brought about by the industrial government partnership, knew that a 911 could occur and the government allowed it to occur. Even though we knew about Payne Stewart nothing was done and so we got Helios' 100 + deaths. Presently we are just as vulnerable to a 911 disaster, decompression disaster, ... etc. as we were in 2001. The public needs to know the system is fixable for the good of our nation. Even though 3000 people died needlessly on 911 the system doesn't fix the data vacuum mode of operation. It works around the system with attempted band-aid patches that are costly and ineffective simply to protect the industry from liability suits. The necessary data is only available in the tombstone/autopsy mode. With all of the deaths that were preventable not a single FAA or NTSB person was even laid-off. Thus, the industry won out and the public and nation suffered. It is quite possible that we went into an unnecessary and horrible war just because we protected the special interest of the aviation industry. The cost of those disasters alone would have been a small fraction of the cost necessary to fix the system and we would now have a safer and securer nation. Instead, things are the same and we are vulnerable.
If you should need more info on this please don't hesitate to contact me (you can see some of my work by going to Google and doing a search on "aviation security, safety and sy levine" or go to my web site www.safelander.com. My work was also featured on the BBC show called "The Black Box". There is simply no reason, technical, cost or data privacy wise" for not using the Black Box Data in real-time, in addition to its autopsy mode, to make our nation safer and securer. The fear of liability, via law suits, should not stand in the way of the airline passenger safety, the safety of people on the ground, or our national security. It is imperative that the traveling public write to the President, their Congressional Representatives, the DOT, FAA and NTSB and demand that the Black Box data be available and utilized in real-time for the security of our nation and to substantially reduce fatal crashes.
Sincerely,
Sy Levine
sylevine1@sbcglobal.net
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