Passenger planes also at risk from cargo, experts say

Associated Press

LONDON

The mail bombs discovered aboard cargo jets in England and Dubai very easily could have ended up on passenger planes, which carry more than half of the international air cargo coming into the U.S., experts say.

And experts caution that cargo, even when loaded onto passenger planes, is sometimes lightly inspected or even completely unexamined, particularly when it comes from countries without well-developed aviation-security systems.

About 60 percent of all cargo flown into the U.S. is on passenger planes, according to Brandon Fried, a cargo security expert and executive director of the Airforwarders Association. New jumbo jets flying in from overseas — such as the Boeing 777 — have “cavernous” bellies where freight is stored, he said.

Most countries require parcels placed on passenger flights by international shipping companies to go through at least one security check. Methods include hand checks, sniffer dogs, X-ray machines and high-tech devices that can find traces of explosives on paper or cloth swabs.

But air shipping is governed by a patchwork of inconsistent controls that make packages a potential threat even to passenger jets, experts said Saturday. Security protocols vary widely around the world, whether they’re related to passenger aircraft or cargo planes.

That at least two parcels containing explosives could be placed on cargo-only flights to England and Dubai, one in a FedEx shipment from Yemen, was a dramatic example of the risks, but the dangers have been obvious for years, analysts said.

Some Western countries, perhaps belatedly, are trying now to manage the risks.

Britain’s Home Secretary Theresa May said the device discovered early Friday morning at England’s East Midlands Airport potentially was able to explode — and could have been used to bring down a plane. She said the U.K. has now banned the movement of all unaccompanied air freight originating from Yemen.

France’s civil-aviation authority also suspended air freight from Yemen, as did the world’s largest package delivery companies — FedEx and UPS.

One particular vulnerability in the system: Trusted companies that regularly do business with freight shippers are allowed to ship parcels as “secure” cargo that is not automatically subjected to further checks.

And even where rules are tight on paper, enforcement can be lax. A U.S. government team that visited cargo sites around the world last year found a range of glaring defects, said John Shingleton, managing director of Handy Shipping Guide, an industry information service.

“They walked into a warehouse where supposedly secure cargo was,” he said, declining to say where that was. “Generally, security is high, but if you think it’s perfect, you’re kidding yourself.”