Security Crackdown Flies Past Private Air Facilities

By DAVID GREENBERG

Staff Reporter

Hal Ross, newly appointed board member of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, was at Santa Monica Airport recently to board a chartered helicopter for his first aerial view of the scenic landscape that he has sworn to protect.

But he was more taken by what he saw on the ground: private cars driving onto the tarmac, people boarding chartered and private planes and no security personnel in sight.

“I was absolutely flabbergasted,” said Ross, a retired senior vice president at the William Morris Agency’s television department. “Why are we spending all this time and millions of dollars securing major airports when there’s no security at private airports? You look up in the sky and see all these jets and helicopters flying around and you wonder what’s on those planes.”

Last month, President Bush signed into law a far-reaching commercial airport security bill calling for screening of all checked bags by explosive-detection machines, background checks for ground personnel and the hiring of thousands of air marshals to ride with passengers.

But none of the regulations apply to non-commercial airports, such as Santa Monica or Van Nuys airports.

“The FAA has not paid attention to general aviation airports,” said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general with the U.S. Department of Transportation, which oversees the FAA.

“There have been cases where there were attempts on private jets for high-profile persons and small planes have been stolen. But frankly, they’ve always been our own domestic garden-variety terrorists,” said Schiavo, now a partner at the L.A.-based law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei Guilford & Schiavo.

Mike Fergus, an FAA media affairs officer, would only say that “the subject of general aviation security is a topic being looked at. Whether it’s on the front burner or the back burner I don’t know what level of (priority) it has relative to post 9-11.”

Charter and private plane operators are not required to screen passengers or check their baggage, and none of the 25 charter airplane services at Santa Monica or Van Nuys uses X-ray machines to check bags. At Santa Monica, neither staff members nor tenants are required to wear identification tags.

“Charter aviation is pretty lax because we think somebody would not get on our plane with a bomb or use (the plane) for malicious purposes,” said Heather West, office manager of Van Nuys-based Sun Quest Executive Air Charter Inc. “We don’t go rifling through people’s baggage. Our customers don’t want to go through what they go through at commercial airports. That’s why they pay the big bucks to charter an aircraft.”

Premium prices

Sun Quest charges $490 to $1,650 per hour to charter one of its five- to nine-seat turbo propeller or business jets. Santa Monica-based XtraJet International charges $1,500 to $3,800 per hour for its business jets, six of which are in Santa Monica and four in Van Nuys.

To be sure, most fliers are well known by the companies that serve them. Client lists consist largely of high-level company executives and celebrities.

But for new passengers, the two airports have no set rules, leaving the responsibility of screenings and airplane security to the plane owners. Each company has its own policies pertaining to security.

XtraJet says it conducts background checks of new customers to ensure they are who they claim to be. The company also requires unfamiliar faces to produce identification and pilots are given discretion to search baggage or use a metal detecting wand.

But searches are rarely conducted, conceded Mark Bethea, XtraJet’s senior vice president.

“Prior to Sept. 11, we would never consider asking a client to open their bags,” he said. “Now it’s an option that we (might) discuss with clients. Our prescreening process determines what additional security, if any, we need to take. If we’re not 100 percent comfortable with somebody, we just don’t do the trip.”

Authority to check bags

Sun Quest also mandates proper identification and name tags on luggage, and its pilots have the seldom-used authority to check bags.

“Other than to see if somebody’s got money in their bank account so they can pay me, there’s not much else we can do,” said West.

Santa Monica Airport has six city-employed unarmed security guards, with one or two on duty at a given time to monitor the 227-acre facility. They have radio contact with the Santa Monica Police Department, which has cruiser patrols that can be on site in minutes, according to Sgt. Jay Tristler, who oversees the security team.

“We’re very vigilant about watching who’s on the airport,” said Bob Trimborn, manager of the Santa Monica Airport. “(But) the way you view Santa Monica Airport is the way you view Marina del Rey. You have privately held boats in a harbor and privately held aircraft in an airport. You come out to the airport to fly your plane just as you take your boat into the ocean.”

Plans call for a new card key access system to be installed by next February, allowing airport operators to track who comes in and out of the aircraft operating area. The system will replace the current punch key code device at the entrance gate. Plans also call for additional fencing to be welded on top of the existing 4-foot-tall barrier.

Increased patrols

Van Nuys Airport, which is operated by Los Angeles World Airports, the same operator of LAX, increased the hours of its armed airport police and unarmed security personnel covering the 735-acre site. The Van Nuys division of the Los Angeles Police Department also has increased patrols in the surrounding area, which is segregated by a barbed-wire fence, street-side parking and gate entrances manned by security guards.

Yet, despite the improvements, the airport has canceled next June’s Van Nuys Air Expo military air show, which generally draws 300,000 throughout a weekend. The cancellation drew criticism from Mayor James Hahn, who said the city should not to bow to terrorists.

“We have canceled the show because of the uncertainty of the availability of the military aircraft, as well as concerns for security having that many people on airport property,” said Selena Birk, manager of Van Nuys Airport.

Although the 80 LAWA employees on site are required to wear identification badges, tenants and their employees are not. But all passengers are escorted onto the tarmac by security or airport personnel, said Birk.

Security measures aside, she said she does not believe general aviation airports would be targets for terrorists.

“All the aircraft are basically painted white,” said Birk. “There’s no distinctive markings on them identifying who is on that aircraft. It’s not like they have ‘United (Airlines)’ or ‘Michael Eisner’ painted on them.”