So, airports are more secure now than they were four months ago, eh?

Not at Denver, CO, apparently, where a television news crew caught on a hidden camera police officers sitting in a break room for hours at a time when they should have been patrolling the airport. According to Associated Press (AP) and station KCNC, one cop recently was caught on film watching an NFL playoff game.

A report by the television station set off political alarm and caused Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman to launch an investigation. The chief immediately announced the transfer of 10 people, including the former cop who ran the airport detail. He insisted, though, that security at the airport had not been undermined, at a time when Denver was one of the major hub points for Olympics-bound athletes and fans.

The Co-Pilot’s Ax
International flights are affected, too. A passenger who tried to force his way into the cockpit of a United Airlines plane flying from Miami to Argentina on Feb. 7 was subdued only after the co-pilot hit the man over the head with a small ax.

Pablo Moreira, a banker from Uruguay, was restrained by the flight crew and later arrested by police after the flight landed as scheduled in Buenos Aires, said an FBI spokeswoman in Miami.

United Flight 855 took off from Miami with 142 passengers and 15 crew aboard. Moreira, 28, began kicking the cockpit door about five hours into the flight, as the jetliner flew over Brazil.

The FBI spokeswoman said Moreira forced it open and went inside the cockpit of the Boeing 777, but United said Moreira did not get inside the cockpit.

“The passenger never gained full entry due to the reinforced cockpit door bar United has installed on all of its fleet,” chairman and CEO Jack Creighton said in a statement reported by AP.

The FBI spokeswoman said the co-pilot grabbed a small ax that is part of the standard firefighting gear and hit Moreira in the head with the blunt side, subduing him.

In another recent incident, a 32-passenger Delta commuter jet from Indianapolis to New York’s LaGuardia Airport landed briefly in Cleveland on Feb. 8 because a passenger smoked on board, acted oddly and became “verbally abusive.”

According to AP, the passenger—a 35-year-old Frenchman—lit a cigarette shortly after take-off from Indianapolis. He refused to put the cigarette out, became verbally abusive and lit another cigarette.

AP reported that the man, who had made people nervous by repeatedly changing seats, was subdued by the flight attendant and another passenger, an off-duty New York police officer.

Since the plane was near Cleveland by that time, the crew decided to divert to Cleveland’s airport and turn the unruly passenger over to local police. After the man and his luggage were removed, the plane resumed its flight to New York City.

Before Sept. 11, the flight might have continued after the smoker was restrained, but given the nervousness of passengers and crews since the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks, everyone was probably relieved by the decision to interrupt the flight and remove the man.

Whether this will lead to new air security rules requiring airport screeners to take lighters and matches away from all passengers remains to be seen.

Air travel security has been ratcheted up continuously since the September attacks. Once cleared through security checkpoints, passengers now are separated from friends and relatives who see them off or wait for them to arrive. The screeners operate under newer and more stringent rules. National Guardsman patrol the airports; so do police with bomb-sniffing dogs. Photo ID issued by the federal or a state government must be displayed frequently—when consigning luggage to the airline and/or when getting a boarding pass, and again when actually boarding the plane.

Individuals are randomly scanned bodily with metal detectors, with many asked to remove shoes, which may or may not be screened for signs of explosives. Passengers may or may not be asked to remove articles of clothing. Carry-on bags, briefcases, purses, coats and other personal items are X-rayed repeatedly, and many such items are subject to hand searches. In addition, some passengers are subjected to pat-downs.

In February, under the latest federal guidelines requiring passengers and luggage to be matched up, some airlines have added a second scan and search of randomly selected passengers as they board the planes. This is in addition to any screening at the first security checkpoint.

In some cases, the same passenger gets searched at both places, drawing the short stick in the random numbering process by which screeners select their subjects, as happened to my daughter, Peggy—the editor of Women & Guns magazine—as we flew to and from the SHOT Show in Las Vegas.

If you are not the subject of the search, it is interesting to watch the process. Usually there is one searcher and he or she selects every third or fourth passenger. But while he is searching his latest subject, 12 or 18 other passengers board the plane and escape the personal pat-down and search.

The subjects of these searches wear the expressions of martyrs, unless they become enraged by questions about under-wire bras, or other personal garments that may contain metal.

Missing Passenger
Meanwhile, the security people appear to miss the boat, or leave passengers puzzled.

On one leg of our flights to and from SHOT, airline staff boarded the plane to ask a passenger with a universally foreign-sounding name—like those used for the bad guys on TV spy dramas—to identify themselves. When, after repeated requests, no such passenger rang the buzzer or otherwise identified him or herself, the airline people shrugged and left. Meanwhile, the others passengers waiting for takeoff wondered if the mysterious passenger’s luggage was removed from the plane.

Then there are the lapses in security.

Marty Liggins, who writes for Gun Week as well as selling advertising space, reported one such lapse after he returned from SHOT.

During the show he had attended a press briefing by ATK. At the briefing Liggins and others were given document cases they thought contained only press releases and photos. Without checking, he placed his in his carry-on camera bag which was passed through the X-ray machine without incident.

When he got home, he examined the ATK case and found that it also contained a metal keyring with an inert round of 5.56mm ammunition attached. While Liggins and the sample round were entirely innocent, the screeners should have detected the cartridge.

Now Liggins isn’t too convinced he should count on the caliber of airline security.

His isn’t the only such tale. Perhaps the most significant involves the Israeli national airline, reportedly having the most thorough and proven security screening in the world.

Israeli Lapse
In late January, an Israeli passenger unwittingly carried a gun in his hand luggage on a flight from Tel Aviv to New York, and Israeli airport officials still are trying to determine how their extensive security checks failed to find the gun.

The passenger boarded the El Al flight at Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv, the Israel Airports Authority said in a statement. Only after he landed at JFK airport in New York and arrived at his hotel did he realize that he had unintentionally brought his gun in his carry-on.

Fearing he might be arrested in New York for having a handgun, he turned it in at the Israeli Consulate, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported. He has since returned to Israel without his gun, the newspaper said.

Security at Ben Gurion airport is very strict. Travelers are told to arrive three hours early, and are subjected to detailed interviews and multiple luggage checks.

If El Al missed a handgun, one wonder what else US security misses.