Airport security remains weak link on Air India anniversary

Ottawa: Twenty-five years after security shortcomings failed to prevent the deadly bombing of Air India Flight 182, federal agencies continue to struggle with ensuring front-line airport screeners are able to stop the next terrorist plot.
In his massive report on the Air India catastrophe, former Supreme Court justice John Major says airports in 1985 had strikingly inadequate security — in large part due to complacency, poor training and lax discipline of the guards hired to screen passengers and baggage.
"Security at Canadian airports is improved today, but the human dimension of aviation security remains a concern," says a 460-page chapter of the report, released last week, that focuses on current challenges.
Major found the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority has "encountered significant difficulties" in recruiting and retaining screening personnel — the staff who frisk millions of Canadians each year before allowing them to board planes.
He made 10 recommendations, including better training, aimed at long-lasting solutions that would provide the "highest quality of screening" at the 89 airports under the air security authority's jurisdiction.
Wednesday marks the 25th anniversary of the bombing that killed 329 people — most of them Canadians — when the flight exploded and plunged into the Irish Sea. Police believe Sikh extremists fighting for an independent homeland blew up the airplane.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to issue a formal government apology at a Toronto ceremony and announce further details of his recent promise to compensate families of the victims. But the government has said little about the glaring problems identified by Major.
22/06/10 Jim Bronskill/The Canadian Press/Winnipeg Free Press

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Air India - International Jun 2010, Foreign Jun 2010, NACIL Jun 2010, Safety Jun 2010