Hundreds arrested in sweep at D.C.-area airports

More than 140 employees at the Washington area's three major airports have been indicted on charges of lying about their identities or criminal pasts on applications to work near airplanes, runways and cargo, federal officials announced Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the charges demonstrated that the nation's system of airport worker background checks needs tightening. He said the reviews -- done piecemeal by airlines, contractors, airports and private security companies -- too often let illegal immigrants, felons and others slip through.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that the Bush administration is comfortable enough with heightened security on airplanes using Reagan National Airport to lift post-Sept. 11 security restrictions on the airport's flight path and operating hours.

The indictments of the airport workers -- 26 of whom were employed at National -- do not detract from the enhanced security measures aboard airplanes, said Lenny Alcivar, a spokesman for U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.

"You're seeing continued steps to maximize the level of safety," Alcivar said. "Make no mistake about it, airports around the country have never been as safe as they are, but we'll continue to do work."

Federal officials arrested a total of 95 employees who worked at National and Dulles International airports. They include food service workers, baggage screeners and custodians. Forty-three other National and Dulles employees were under indictment but were still being sought.

Officials also said 10 workers at Baltimore-Washington International Airport were indicted on similar charges.

No one was charged in connection with a terrorist act. Most were accused of lying on applications to work in high-security areas. Authorities said the misstatements included supplying false Social Security numbers and failing to disclose felony convictions or pending state charges.

"What this investigation uncovered should be a wake-up call to every airport in America," Ashcroft said as he announced the results of the five-month investigation at an Alexandria, Va., news conference. "Americans deserve the confidence of knowing that the individuals working at our airports are worthy of their trust."

Since Sept. 11, federal authorities have conducted similar raids at a half-dozen airports, including Salt Lake City, Denver and Miami. However, Tuesday's arrests refocused attention on security lapses at airports that are just minutes, and in National's case even seconds, from the White House, the Pentagon and other potential terrorist targets. Authorities noted that American Airlines Flight 77, which terrorists hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon, took off from Dulles.

FBI and Federal Aviation Administration officials have found no evidence that the Sept. 11 hijackers had accomplices among airport employees.

David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said the arrests highlight how much airport security had deteriorated before Sept. 11 as well as remaining gaps that terrorists could exploit.

"I think the concern the public should have is how inadequate airline and aviation security had gotten that we're now just discovering these things,'' Stempler said. We all thought people with access to planes were somehow being checked, but apparently not to the extent they should have been."

Patricia Friend, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said the arrests bolstered her group's arguments that airport workers should have to pass through the same metal detectors and personal searches that flight crews undergo before entering restricted areas.

"I think it makes the point we've been trying to make that everybody who has access to a secure area of airports or airplanes should be thoroughly screened," Friend said.

Washington area airports, along with most others in the country, have no way of making sure that happens. Cargo areas, outlying gates and remote airport doors often are protected only by electronic locks that can be opened with a swipe of an employee's identification badge.

Congress ordered the new Transportation Security Administration to find a way to put ramp workers through security screening but imposed no deadline. Federal officials have studied the issue but taken little action because they are consumed with addressing issues for which Congress did set deadlines: getting thousands of federal baggage screeners in place by Nov. 19 and installing bomb-detection equipment in all airports by the end of the year.