Risk posed by overseas aircraft repairs debated (bomb on board)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-10-16-tsa-inside_N.htm

By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — When he was head of security at Northwest Airlines in the 1990s, Douglas Laird worried about aviation workers smuggling drugs into the USA by stashing them inside airplane doors, behind wall panels and underneath bathroom sinks.

The contraband was typically planted while an airplane was in an overseas repair shop for overnight or long-term work, Laird said.

Now as an aviation-security consultant, Laird has a bigger fear: that a terrorist will enter an overseas repair shop, plant a bomb in an airplane cavity and use a cellphone to trigger it.

"If you have unimpeded access to an aircraft for a period of time, you can take things apart, hide something and put it back together," Laird said.

Although airlines check airplanes when they return from repair shops, Laird said, "An inspection would never be able to find something you planted."

Laird's fear is echoed by some lawmakers and investigators, whose concern grows as airlines have more planes repaired overseas. The number of overseas repair shops licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration has grown from 344 in 1994 to nearly 700, according to Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel. Those shops "are not subject to U.S. security requirements," Scovel said in a June report. Each country sets its own security standards.

FULL story at link.