can we stop another lockerbie?: airlines are stretching technology to its limits in the hunt for bombs among passengers\' luggage
Daniel Clary found a bomb in his suitcase, which made the needle in a haystack look simple.
Four years since Pan Am flight 103 was destroyed over Lockerbie, killing 270 people, five more bombs have exploded in the cargo compartment of a commercial airliner.
However, it is estimated that airlines carry 2 billion pieces of luggage each year, which makes the probability of containing bombs in any one of them less than one in ten million.
These odds did not impress the airline.
They believe that the risk is so small that the cost of establishing a detection system is unreasonable.
But people don\'t like to play Russian roulette every time they board the plane-even with these odds-as demonstrated by the fear of terrorist activity by travellers in the Gulf War.
Check all passengers and their hand luggage for weapons or explosions by hand search, metal detectors and X-
Since being recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization, fax machines have greatly reduced the number of hijackings (ICAO)
Almost every country belongs to this country. see Graph).
Since then, unlike another recommendation, this screening has become mandatory and all checked baggage can be screened.
But if carrying out a weapon check on passengers can actually eliminate the hijacking, why doesn\'t the airline do it?
Bag of bombs?
In fact, after Lockerbie, the British Airport Authority conducted a study to see the most modern X-
Ray machines and manual searches can be used to filter all checkedin bags.