about the possibility of getting on Flight 103 on December 21st. She was told that she would have to be considered for standby, however, the tickets would be half price if there were availability. Now, on December 15th there was apparently a standby situation. What happened between December 15th and December 21st, when 168 seats became vacant? That's one of the questions that many of us have.

Looking beyond the two months preceding the bombing of Flight 103, there are unanswered questions about the detection of plastic bombs and how FAA and the airlines dealt with this limitation. Since 1982, the U.S. Government and airlines have known that security measures to protect U.S. airlines abroad were not adequate and that plastic bombs could go undetected. FAA did accelerate its order of six Thermal Neutron Analysis devices, which can effectively detect plastics, like Semtex, used in the bomb that destroyed Flight 103. However, what is difficult to understand is why FAA and the airlines, given their knowledge of inadequacies in plastic bomb detection, knowledge that TNAS would not be in use for some time, and of increasing threats from terrorists, did not require or put into use widespread x-ray devices which are on the market now that can pick up the differences between inorganic materials and organic materials like plastics.

These x-ray devices, known as E-scans, although they are not nearly as effective as TNAs can pick up the presence of plastics, which show up as brownish-orange. The complete cost of the device is about $60,000 to $65,000. Airlines also have the option of adding E-scan enhancers to existing black and white x-rays at a cost of only $20,000. E-scans are available and are being used only on a limited scale by U.S. airlines. Until TNA devices can be introduced on a wide scale, why aren't E-scans, given their low cost, being put into widespread use to detect plastics.

Now, I've been told by some people who have familiarity with the E-scan system that regarding Flight 103, that machines would have been able to detect the plastics because there would have had to have been enough sheets of the plastic, given the amount of poundage in that bomb, to show up on a x-ray. So this is a very big question that we have. Why aren't these machines being put in use right now?

Regarding the TNA devices themselves, it has been estimated that U.S. airlines would need 66 units at some 45 airports at a cost of $48.5 million. Congress can move forward to authorize special monies for the acceleration of TNAs and other devices on the market, and for further research and development.

As legislators, you are also in the position to pass special legislation, as introduced by Senator D'Amato last week, to set up a new system of aviation security threat notification. Senator D'Amato's bill provides the Secretary of Transportation must set up a system to evaluate and grade the credibility and severity of threats against international aviation. If the Secretary of Transportation determines that a credible threat exists, he must immediately notify the Secretary of State, affected air carriers, and airports. The State Department must establish a 24-hour, toll-free consumer hotline to inform the public about credible threats. The information must be as specific as possible with regard to the particular flight and the

severity of the threat. Air carriers must print the State Department hotline number on airline tickets. Also the number must be prominently displayed at airports.

Air carriers receiving threat information from the Secretary of Transportation must immediately inform the flight crews of potentially affected flights. It shall be lawful for an air carrier to take any retaliatory action against flight crew members who act to avoid threats. The Secretary shall have the authority to cancel flights if he determines that a serious and credible threat exists, and that cancellation is in the public interest.

We can only ensure that airline tragedies like Pan Am Flight 103 will never occur again by passing legislation dealing with aviation security threat notification in conjunction with added Federal funding for acceleration, delivery and research on state-of-the-art detection devices, matching of checked bags to passengers, banning of radio cassette devices, and use of better paid, trained and investigated baggage handlers and airport employees.

In closing, I and my family urge you to find answers to the many unanswered questions and to take effective legislative action in time to stop another airline disaster like Pan Am Flight 103. Thank you.

Mr. ŎBERSTAR. Thank you very, very much. Again, I'll reserve comments and questions until we've heard from Mr. Hudson. Mr. Hudson?

Mr. HUDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. Before I begin, I would just like to hand up approximately 1,000 letters that are addressed to you, which have been written and signed in the last week in my area. They call on you to hold this hearing, which you've so graciously done, and they also call on you to mandate the FAA for once and for all to institute stringent security measures, so that we will not have many more Flight 103s.

Ms. CUMMOCK. Additionally, I'm submitting 700 letters requesting that the Government provide U.S. citizens with the right to safe air travel by addressing these security issues.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. Those will be received and included. Mr. HUDSON. Mr. Chairman, we've now been listening for over five hours, and I must say my brief comments that I will make, I bring some anger to this proceeding.

I lost a 16-year old daughter, who was a high school exchange student, on that flight. If any one of several of procedures had been in effect, I have no doubt in my mind that she would have never been on that flight. She would be alive today.

I think it's important, Mr. Chairman, we keep it clear as to the present status of airline security policies. This is the 90th day since Flight 103 was bombed. What has happened in those 90 days?

First, the warning policy. It's the same as it was. It has not changed. The policy has been reiterated by the State Department and the FAA is to keep warnings, even serious, credible threats, secret from the public, secret from the passengers, secret from the flight crews, the very people who are at risk.

There has been no move to ban the very devices which were used to hide the bomb that brought down 103. Incredibly, Mr. Chairman, three weeks ago at a Montreal Conference, the British Transport Minister recommended, before the World Press, that these devices

be banned. He stated that we have no defense against plastic bombs placed in radio cassette recorders and other such electronic devices. The plastic is invisible to the present x-rays used, and the wiring cannot be distinguished. But incredibly no action was taken, except to say that this international body will meet again in June to consider it further, thereby alerting the terrorists, who we now know have these devices, that we are not going to proceed, that we are not going to take any action. I would submit that this goes on beyond negligence, beyond incompetence, and we are now in an area of incredibly reckless behavior.

There has been an exemption declared by FAA order of foreign carriers from any tighter security measures that were instituted since Flight 103 was bombed. Now the justification for that is that it might be uncomfortable or difficult if we were to try to enforce stricter security measures on foreign air carriers. But no attempt was made to do so. And in 1986, as I recall, when we had a problem in Athens, and a problem in Rome, just by issuing the fact that these airports were not in compliance with stricter American standards, and that Americans might be advised to be careful about visiting such airports, was enough to change their security procedures quite quickly. Why wasn't something like that done here?

Finally, the FAA has set forth a time frame of three to four years to close this security gap. That is the gap that has been created by our technology and procedures not keeping up with terrorists' technology and procedures. We cannot detect plastic bombs, as we now know, in checked luggage, with current security measures. Three to four years, Mr. Chairman. That is about how long it took us to win World War II. Do they really believe that the American people, do they believe that the victims' families are going to wait three or four years?

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I would just urge you and your committee to consider the support of three propositions. First, we are calling for a full Congressional investigation with respect to what happened to Flight 103. The inconsistencies have now transcended that, and they have become, in some cases discrepancies and actual cover-ups of how many warnings were issued, when were they issued, what security measures were or were not taken. We cannot rely on the FAA and the State Department to investigate themselves. In most air crashes there is no question that the Government agencies are not involved in what caused the crash, or in preventing it. It is due to pilot error, it is due to equipment failure, it is due to weather, other factors. We do not have the situation here.

Secondly, we would urge that you support a petition, which we filed today, that is the Victims' of Pan Am 103, which is an organization consisting of 300 American family members, to both tighten the security measures that are now so ineffective, on a short-term basis, not a three to four year time frame, and secondly to reform the warning or notice policy so that high-level threats are conveyed to the people who are really at risk, namely the people getting on the airplane. We believe it's simply immoral to say that a security officer sitting at a desk in Frankfurt or London, or Washington, is going to say whether a plane goes or stays. And if he makes a mis

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take, he is not the one to suffer; and to keep that information secret from the very people who's lives are at stake. We can have no confidence in the system which maintains this type of policy.

And thirdly, Mr. Chairman, we call on you and the committee to resolve this muddle of who is going to pay for TNA devices, which everyone apparently recognizes are needed to detect bombs.

I sat through a hearing last Tuesday before Senator Lautenberg for five or six hours, the same here today. You have the industry here, you have the FAA here, you have your committee, of course, representing the House of Representatives on this issue. Why can't we get some action? Why can't we get resolution of this? The highest figure that's been put out here is $150 million. That represents about 25 cents per ticket. This is absurd. I would call on you in the next week to try to resolve this issue. The industry indicated last Tuesday, they were amenable to cost sharing. You have talked about using the trust fund. The money is there. This is not a money issue. We look totally foolish to our allies and the rest of the world, when we muddle around for 15 to 20 cents per ticket. When 200 Americans were shot out of the sky in the largest attack in history by terrorists against American civilians.

And finally, Mr. Chairman, I would just urge you to break the pattern of inaction that has developed, and paralysis of our industry and of our Government in reaction to this disaster.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, all three of you, for a very heartfelt, very powerful and compelling testimony that speaks to the depth of your loss, the depth of your concern, and more importantly, that speaks to a broader issue, as you have said it so well in your testimony, your action, the actions that others will take in this matter, cannot bring back the lives of your loved ones, but can prevent the loss of life for others. And that is the spirit in which you are here today. Surely to see justice done and questions answered and peace of soul regained.

I applaud you more for the broader concern that you have that the gaps in the security net that you have identified, and the problems of agency response to those who have lost loved ones in a tragedy, be closed for others who may at some future time tragically also befall the same fate. And I have great respect for your concern and for your appeal today.

Ms. Commock, we have discussed prior to this session, the concerns that you were very specific about in your testimony, questions of the State Department, and questions of the airline. You should know that while you may not have had satisfactory answers, and may not have, as you've said before, had even a satisfactory hearing, Ambassador McManaway has sat here through this entire testimony, has heard every word of it, and will receive a copy of your testimony, and the questions you've asked, all three of you, and we'll get answers. And the FAA have sat through and heard your entire testimony, and will have a copy of it and we'll see that those questions are answered, and we'll evaluate how accurate and how responsive they've been.

We don't mean to have this hearing and to let the matter drop, and go on our way. We mean to come to a resolution, as Mr. Hudson said, to have some action. I don't know that it can come in

a week. I don't know that it can come in a month. But it's going to come, surely, as fast as all the combined resources of people on this committee can make it happen. Putting in place the detection devices, simply a matter of releasing money from the Aviation Trust Fund. The money is there, the tax has been paid. The tax has been paid for two purposes, to improve airports, both facilities and equipment, that is runways, parking, ramps, and the air traffic control equipment, and for the provision of security.

People who fly pay that tax. It was once two separate taxes, it's been combined into a single tax and it's been paid into a trust fund with the assurance and the compact of the Federal Government with the people of the United States, that the money would be used for that purpose. It hasn't been. And now, we're going to fall short of using the Aviation Trust Fund because money has been withheld, only 77 percent of the current cash flow in the current fiscal year will be spent for the purposes for which intended. And that means that under the law the tax will be cut to 50 percent next year, there'll be less money coming into the trust fund and less money paid out, and that reserve continue to be held. If $400 million more were released in this fiscal year, the money will continue to be paid in and the benefits enjoyed by the traveling public.

I think if we can prevail upon the Administration, and I've asked a question in the Budget Committee hearings, and I serve on the Budget Committee, both last year and again this year, it does not make one wit of difference for the deficit whether that money is paid out or withheld, except that withheld it covers up some $400 million of deficit, but paid out does not add to the deficit, because it is a part of the trust fund. So we need to find a way to increase the funding or to, as it has been suggested earlier, in the current fiscal year to find a way to reprogram funds and rededicate them to the uses and purposes addressed in your collective testimony.

Perhaps the most painful question asked by this panel, is that of pre-notification. We asked that question of the State Department, in response to or because of a statement in Ambassador McManaway's testimony, "If we have a specific and credible threat to civil aviation security which cannot be countered, we will strongly recommend to the air carrier that it cancel the threatened flight." They have never had specific and credible threat information to such a degree that caused the Department to recommend to a carrier that it cancel a threatened flight. And therefore, your situation was not even in that category. So something needs to be done

Mr. HUDSON. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman▬▬ Mr. OBERSTAR. Just a moment.

Something needs to be done about the way in which threats are evaluated, how seriously threats are taken, how fully the threat is investigated. Ambassador McManaway said that it was a coincidence, that the caller in the Helsinki instance had been known by authorities and had been identified as a hoax. But there were other indicators as well that we feel were not sufficiently evaluated ahead of time, and that we think our security agencies need to be more careful about. We think that the testimony today indicated, of course the FAA is not an intelligence gathering agency, it is one that responds to intelligence gathered by the other agencies of the