FAA to Require More Criminal Background Checks
W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 17 -- The Federal Aviation Administration will require criminal background checks of all airline and airport employees who have access to secure areas.
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"I am directing that a criminal history check be done on all airline and airport employees with access to secure areas," FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., today. Garvey said she hoped the background checks, which the FAA says would include up to 1 million people, will be completed in less than nine months.
The checks will include baggage handlers, maintenance workers, aircraft cleaners, caterers and other personnel, and private contractors who have access around and inside aircraft. Current federal regulations call for background checks only on employees at the 20 largest airports hired after December 2000. After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the FAA ordered the revalidation of identification badges worn by airport employees and said it planned to match them against FBI "watched" lists.
Garvey also said that the government's shutting down of national airspace after three of the four planes hijacked were used to attack New York and Washington, thwarted more planned hijackings.
"I certainly have been persuaded by discussions with the FBI and others that there were others that were thwarted," she said, without commenting on an exact number. Garvey praised air traffic controllers for quickly bringing down the planes that were already in flight during the attacks.
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