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Tarmac blues at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport
Apparently, you can now strap a surface-to-air missile to your back and go wandering around the Charlotte Douglas International Airport tarmac and no one will notice. Bring a lawn chair. Sun yourself while dodging planes. Steal tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. History shows that you will probably get away with it.
For the second time in seven months, a stowaway appears to have used the tarmac at Charlotte-Douglas to illegally hop on or off a plane.
When I flew out of the airport last week, TSA screeners spent 10 minutes tearing my purse apart in front of a line of passengers, examining its contents in minute detail. But security officials at the same airport can't account for a 37-minute period of time last fall during which they believe 16-year-old Delvonte Tisdale wandered onto the airline's tarmac and climbed into the wheel well of a plane without having gone through the airport itself. Security is so bad out there that they have no recorded video or other surveillance of the period, so they can't say for sure when or exactly where he boarded the plane, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department report on the incident. Tisdale's mangled body was later discovered along the plane's flight path in Boston.
What that means is that the security folks at the airport now know more about the contents of my purse than they do about what happened last fall on their tarmac.
Then last week, while the TSA was obsessing over the contents of my purse and addressing me as if they had just busted me plotting a hijacking with lipstick and a digital recorder, a US Airways mechanic who stowed away on a flight from Florida to Charlotte was apparently busy dropping from his hiding place near the plane's tail, onto the tarmac and then accessing the airport. Once inside the terminal, he boarded a flight to Pennsylvania, according to news reports.
"Neither the airport or the airline will say if anyone stopped the mechanic once he dropped out of his hiding spot and onto the tarmac," WCNC reported. "It is also not clear how he got access to the terminal."
Nothing is ever clear to officials at the airport, which is run by the city of Charlotte. They weren't interested in doing a major security investigation after the Tisdale incident, and had to be publicly shamed into it. Afterward, in February, in response to their crack investigation, they announced that there would be a bunch of security upgrades at the airport.
The security upgrade thing went so smashingly that a month later someone cut through a fence and stole equipment off airport property — twice. The first time they got $13,000 in construction equipment. The second time, it was diesel fuel. The break-ins occurred right near runways where planes land and take off.
Once again, airport higher-ups couldn't say for certain when the thieves broke in and had to give a two-day span, plenty of time for terrorists to have strapped bombs to half a dozen air-bound items had they cared to.
Last week's incident again shows that whatever security upgrades have been made at the airport don't amount to squat.
And airport officials still don't appear to give a rip. They say there is no need for another major security investigation, either. Both the airport and the airline declined to talk further about the latest stowaway, citing respect for his privacy.
It's not as if no one cares. The last time this happened at Charlotte's airport, there was a congressional hearing during which politicians demanded that someone do something. Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security, called it a major national security "breakdown."
But here in Charlotte, we don't get too worked up about stuff like that.
Patrick Cannon, chairman of Charlotte City Council's public safety committee, told WCNC the changes made at the airport appear to be good ones.
"We have stepped up all in which we can to make sure that security is of a higher measure," he said. "We've added more police officers out there. It almost makes you beg to ask ... is there something the airlines should be doing?"
God help us.
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