Officials who asked not to be identified confirmed yesterday that there have been no security breaches at Lihu’e Airport, unlike airports in the rest of Hawai’i. There have been 400 lapses of security chronicled in the state in the last
Officials who asked not to be identified confirmed yesterday that there have been no security breaches at Lihu’e Airport, unlike airports in the rest of Hawai’i.
There have been 400 lapses of security chronicled in the state in the last 10 years, most at Honolulu International Airport.
An investigation continues regarding a breach at the interisland terminal of Honolulu International Airport Sunday, when a screener reported seeing an image that looked like a pistol.
The subsequent reactions ended up creating an incident that closed the airport and shut down interisland air travel for several hours on one of the busier travel days of the year.
Travelers at Lihu’e Airport were inconvenienced but calm Sunday, as bags and people stacked up because no planes were allowed to leave Honolulu. The interisland terminal of Honolulu International was evacuated and closed for several hours.
There was speculation that a computer-generated image appeared that the screener saw but reacted to only after the passenger associated with the carry-on article being scanned had passed the checkpoint and was ready to board a plane.
At Lihu’e Airport, before and after Sept. 11, security screeners routinely catch and confiscate articles like scissors, knives, and other items in carry-on baggage that could pose threats to airline passengers and crews, the local airport source said.
He confirmed that the X-ray-type screening devices have built-in test images, including pistols, hand grenades and other items, which appear at random in order to ensure the screener operating the machine is alert to possible dangers in carry-on baggage going through the screening devices.
The correct reaction when one of these computer-generated images appears, or when a suspect item is actually spotted in baggage, is to stop the passenger and check the baggage. If nothing suspicious is found (as happened when the Honolulu passenger was subsequently checked), the passenger is allowed to proceed.
Dangerous items uncovered by physical searches are confiscated, and unless criminal intent is suspected, the passengers are allowed to proceed.
Also, airline employees, Federal Aviation Administration workers, state airport officials and others routinely try to breach checkpoint security with fake weapons either carried on their persons or placed in checked baggage.
Fines for breaches are levied against the airlines that operate at the airports, as they are the entities which technically employ the security personnel.
According to a review of Federal Aviation Administration records, most security incidents occurred at Honolulu International in the past three years. Since Jan. 1, 1998, there have been 138 lapses in security there, with fines totaling $265,350. Statewide, fines have totaled more than half a million dollars since 1990.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224). The Associated Press contributed to this report.
