FAA flaws under Garvey detailed

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Aviation Administration under then-administrator Jane F. Garvey failed to take steps to protect the nation's air fleet from terrorism before the 2001 attacks and its communications were in disarray on the morning of the hijackings, according to a damaging portrait of the agency painted by the 9/11 commission's final report, released this week.

Garvey, a former Logan International Airport chief who ran the FAA from 1997 to 2002 and is now an unpaid consultant to next week's Democratic National Convention in Boston, did not pay ''much attention" to her agency's intelligence unit, the report said. More concerned with addressing operational concerns and safety issues, she didn't read the daily threat reports, it said.

''She was unaware of a great amount of hijacking threat information from her own intelligence unit, which, in turn, was not deeply involved in the agency's policymaking process," the report said.

But while the report details a ''seriously flawed" aviation security system that failed to prevent any of the 19 hijackers from boarding four aircraft at three airports -- including Logan -- Garvey said in an interview yesterday that she disagreed with how the commission characterized the agency's performance during her tenure.

She was always briefed on any top-secret information about aviation threats provided to the FAA by the intelligence community, she said. She relied on her deputies to screen the daily threat reports because, she said, each contained ''hundreds of pieces of information," not all of it related to aviation.

''The top secret and classified information was coming in fairly regularly that summer . . . early spring through August," she said. ''We were aware of more activity [but] the predominant information pointed to a concern for overseas terrorism. I think what is important, at least from the FAA's perspective and my perspective, is that I was receiving everything the agency was receiving."

The commission noted that the FAA wasn't solely to blame for its lack of attention to terrorism: Before 2001, no terrorist had hijacked a US aircraft anywhere in the world since 1986. And members of Congress charged with oversight of the FAA had focused on a ''passenger's bill of rights" to improve customer satisfaction, rather than push the agency to improve security.

In addition, the report praised the FAA for flawlessly executing the unprecedented order to ground all aircraft in the midst of the attacks. Still, it is harsh in its depiction of how the FAA failed to live up to its mandate to protect the nation's civil aviation system prior to the attacks.

For example, internal reports before Sept. 11 showed that X-ray machines and screeners were failing to detect ''even obvious FAA test items," but the agency did not move aggressively to correct the problem. Airlines overseeing checkpoint security ignored a requirement to have random checks of carry-on luggage without any consequences.

''Secondary screening of individuals and their carry-on bags to identify weapons (other than bombs) was nonexistent, except for passengers who triggered the metal detectors," the report said. ''Even when small knives were detected by secondary screening, they were usually returned to the traveler."

Garvey, who is now executive vice president for transportation issues at the communications firm ABCO Worldwide, declined to comment about details of the report, referring questions to FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown.

Brown said the FAA was aware of the problems at the time of the attacks and was weeks away from announcing a rule change that would give it greater direct control over screening procedures and the companies running the checkpoints.

The report also chided the FAA for failing to order more extensive checks of passengers identified by computer screening as terror risks. Those identified by the screening, including several of the hijackers, only had their checked luggage scanned for explosives or held off the airplane until after they boarded.

''Primarily because of concern regarding potential discrimination and the impact on passenger throughput, 'selectees' were no longer required to undergo extraordinary screening of their carry-on baggage as had been the case before the system was computerized in 1997," the report said.

Moreover, the FAA did not add the names of thousands of known or suspected terrorists from CIA, FBI, and State Department databases to its ''no-fly" screening list. The list contained just 12 terrorist suspects -- a decision the commission called astonishing.

Brown said the State Department's database was difficult to use, however, because it did not include dates of birth or other information that would distinguish the actual terror suspect from anyone else with the same name -- a problem the commission acknowledged.

The report also says that prior to the attacks, FAA policy did not require hardened cockpit doors that would prevent entry by a hijacker. It also noted that the FAA's strategy for dealing with hijackers didn't contemplate suicide hijackers and emphasized negotiating with attackers.

Brown said that the FAA had been studying hardened cockpits prior to the 2001 attacks, but that the versions they were looking at would have endangered pilots in the event of a cabin depressurization. She said this problem was solved and all flights in the United States added the hardened doors by April 2003 -- at a cost of $240 million.

The report says the FAA failed to warn the North American Aerospace Defense about three of the four hijacked airplanes before they had already crashed. It did not join a military teleconference call for 48 minutes, and the FAA official who finally picked up the phone had no access to information or senior decision-makers.

Brown said, however, that the FAA had initiated its own teleconference call that morning but that the military chose to ignore that call and start its own. And, she said, some of FAA employees said they called the military earlier than the commission report states.

She also criticized an excerpt of a transcript that shows the FAA Cleveland Command Center urging headquarters to request military intercept of the hijacked United Flight 93 for 13 minutes before being told: ''Uh, you know everybody just left the room."

After that excerpt, she said, the transcript shows that an FAA official returned to the room and announced that the military was scrambling fighter jets above Washington and New York. Thus, she said, there was no reason for the FAA to request military assistance.

However, the report says that the jets were scrambling north of Washington to intercept what they falsely believed was a plane coming down from the New York area, when that plane had already crashed into the World Trade Center. No one told the military to look for United 93, which was fast approaching from the west and probably aiming for either the White House or the Capitol.

The flight crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

Brown also said the government has done much to correct the communications problems that plagued the agency on the morning of the attacks. For example, there is now a call line open at the FAA that NORAD, the FBI, the Secret Service, and other security agencies monitor constantly.