Former Transportation official says security can be bypassed

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The apparent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington were likely successful with help from inside the airports where the planes originated, said Mary Schiavo, former U.S. Transportation Department inspector general.

Schiavo, who now teaches at Ohio State University, said airport employees with general access to employee-only areas could easily have gotten themselves or others past airport security.

Also, airport workers, including those at security checkpoints, do not go through background checks before they are hired, which could easily lead to a breach in security, Schiavo said.

"I don't think the question is going to be how could this have happened," she said. "We know how this could have happened ... the question is going to be how in the world do we put this back together so that it doesn't happen again. And that is a big question."

Schiavo is the author of "Flying Blind, Flying Safe," a book that criticizes the Federal Aviation Administration's air safety enforcement efforts. She also filed a claim of negligence against the FAA for the January 2000 crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261.

She said she also believes the pilots of the flights that crashed into the World Trade Center were dead before the planes hit the building.

"Whoever hijacked them took over the flying," she said. "It was too surgical. If they (hijackers) were struggling with someone in the cockpit, you wouldn't have seen a hit like that."