Hank Investigates: Unprepared for Takeoff

At no other time in history has air travel looked like this. Extra questions, extra ID's, restricted parking, heavy duty screening of carry on bags. The illusion is that they've got it covered. But what about the checked luggage that gets loaded into the cargo hold?

While carry-on luggage is x-rayed scanned searched and scrutinized, our investigation found that checked bags rarely get a second look.

Patricia Friend, Assoc of Flight Attendants
"There is no way we know what people are putting into those bags."

Several years ago, this 7News producer with reservations on the noon flight to Miami checked his bag at the curbside. He then took a cab back to the station. But watch, his bag was still loaded onto the plane and later arrived in Florida.

How could a bag go without a passenger? It could still happen today! There's no requirement on U.S. domestic flights to match every bag to a passenger, and that infuriates those who fly for a living.

Patricia Friend, Assoc of Flight Attendants
"They could put explosives in suitcase and check it and no one would ever know until the airplane blew up in the air."

That's exactly what happened on Pan AM 103. A terrorist with a ticket checked a bag with a bomb, then did not board the plane. Malina Hudson and 269 others died as a result. Her father, now an airline safety expert, has industry numbers on how few bags are actually matched to passengers.

Hank Phillippi Ryan
"What percent would you say there is?"

Paul Hudson, Aviation Consumer Action Project
"I can’t talk about it, except to say it’s wholly inadequate."

Now if you're saying, ‘why would you even discuss this? It’s no secret to the government, airline industry, or to terrorists.’ After Pan AM 103, this presidential commission report called bag matching a top priority! This FAA funded study calculated its cost.

Arnold Barnett, MIT, Study Author
"It might cost 50 cents more per passenger. We might average delays of one minute per flight."

But industry officials fought the plan, saying it would cause delays and be too expensive. Now on Capitol Hill, bag matching is still just "under consideration."

Patricia Friend, Assoc of Flight Attendants
"It’s unconscionable and unacceptable."

Now you wouldn't need to match bags if you could make sure there were no explosives inside. And some airlines do have equipment to do that, but our investigation found most often they don't use it.

This million-dollar machine uses state of the art methods to detect explosives. But here at Logan and across the country, what it often does is nothing. That's right, nothing. We watched for two solid hours as some passengers were selected by the airlines computer to have extra baggage screening.

This government report says the machines can screen 225 bags per hour, but we watched as they did about 15 an hour! The rest of the time the machine just sat there.

Hank Phillippi Ryan
"Why don't they screen more bags?"

Paul Hudson, Aviation Consumer Action Project
"Bottom line is that security is viewed as a cost that does not bring any revenue for the airports and the airlines."

Using studies like this one, companies concluded constant screening is not worth the cost. In other words, disaster is cheaper. Now security experts say that their equation has to change.

Larry Johnson, Security Expert
"They didn't imagine that it could happen to two of them on the same day and it forces a fundamental reevaluation of how they do business and how security is conducted."

Bottom line, only one in ten checked bags right now are screened and even the brand new airline security law won’t change that soon. Screening of every bag isn’t mandated until 2002, and most experts agree even then, there won't be enough machines to accomplish that.