tims families are notified immediately of an air disaster. Second, to assign one liaison to each family who is authorized to provide and disseminate pertinent information on a daily basis, about areas such as general crash information, if there's survivors, if there are bodies, what basically has happened; they should also give us information about procedures, documents needed to ID bodies, the number of bodies found, time frame to ID the bodies, and so forth; they should tell us about the investigation, who is in charge of it, what agencies will contact us, what will be needed from the victims' families, and then coordinate those agencies to have access to basic biographical information about the victims' families to minimize repetition and harassment of the victims' families; and last, personal belongings, what is the process involved in returning personal belongings, no one has informed us of that, and standardize the type of information and format needed to identify personal effects.

So pre-notification, detection, coordination, compensation and crisis managements must be addressed now. But, as we all know, each of them takes time, and passenger safety must be protected in the interim. We therefore demand that the FAA enforce the following emergency stop-gap measures until the permanent measures discussed above are in place.

First, all carry-on and checked baggage must be hand searched until proper bomb detection equipment is in place. It must be sealed as soon as the appropriate security checks have been completed, and matched with passengers. Any unattended or abandoned baggage must then be turned over to security personnel.

Second, the El Al air procedures of utilizing security personnel to question all passengers should be adopted by all airlines at least on a stop-gap basis.

Third, late arriving passengers should either be denied entrance or subjected, regardless of possible flight delays, to the same screening process that other passengers have already gone through. Fourth, all un-accompanied luggage must be searched for explosives before allowing it on the plane.

We must eliminate curbside check-in.

We also must mark each bag after it's gone through security, making sure only bags that have been checked are loaded on to the planes. Limit access to the planes by airline and airport personnel once bags are checked.

Next, assign special seats to suspicious passengers where flight crews and FAA sky marshals can monitor them.

Keep non-passengers out of domestic and international con

courses.

Isolate passengers on connecting flights coming from other airports, where security is weak, requiring them to go through security checks.

We must have one uniform security system for all airports and all airlines, as opposed to different agencies working the same airport with little or no coordination.

We need to raise the caliber and provide necessary training to security people. At minimum wage, you get what you pay for.

An 800 number should be established with information on airline threats, and that's high-level airline threats, enabling ticketed pas

sengers to contact the specific airline mentioned for details, and then to decide for themselves whether they want to take a particular flight.

And finally, ban electronic devices large enough to contain plastic explosives' of the type that destroyed Pan Am 103, until new plastic bomb detection monitors are installed.

No doubt these recommendations and interim procedures will involve cost, inconvenience and complaints. But they will also save lives.

Finally, we urge this Committee to obtain a better sense of the confusion and the cover-up that now characterizes international airline security by investigating a particular case—the case of Pan Am 103. We have attached as an appendix to this statement, a series of questions for which you will be able to obtain answers better than we can.

Those answers will not bring back our loved ones, massacred on December 21st at 31,00 feet. Neither will the remedial measures we have advocated here. But at least those measures and others like them can help to increase the safety of our airways. At least they can help to prevent other potential murderers from inflicting pain on more people, no doubt including air travelers like you and your families. If action is taken now that saves the lives of countless others, then the terrible tragedy of last December will have at least produced some small gain to offset the terrible loss that we have suffered.

We are grateful for your consideration today of our views, and we are hopeful that you will take the earliest action accordingly. We hope that you concur and recommend a full Congressional investigation in order to get both Senate and House Committees to institute mandatory changes and provide necessary funds to change the current system and do everything in your power to avoid history from repeating itself.

Thank you very much.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Ms. Commock, and I'll reserve comments until I've heard from the other witnesses.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Ms. Wolfe?

Ms. WOLFE. Mr. Chairman, my name is Rosemary Wolfe. My 20year old stepdaughter, Miriam Luby Wolfe, a student of musical theatre at Syracuse, was a victim aboard Pan Am Flight 103. I thank the Chairman and members for calling this hearing and appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, on this the three-month anniversary of the bombing.

Just a few days ago, as I was getting ready to prepare this testimony, my family learned that only two of Miriam's personal effect to have been identified so far are a watch and an earring. She liked to collect jewelry that had the masks for the muses of comedy and tragedy. As it turned out, the earring she was found still wearing was the muse of tragedy. This was a chilling and startling reminder that the legacy of Pan Am Flight 103 is that it could happen again, that we must take immediate steps to ensure that security and warning systems are improved and implemented in enough time to stop another disaster.

This must involve not only the airlines, which have the responsibility for establishing and carrying out security operations, but also

FAA, which regulates airline security, the Department of Transportation, which oversees FAA, the State Department, which manages our policy, and the Congress, the watchdog of new legislation. My family has many unanswered questions about how the tragedy could have been averted and why it was not. Why weren't the passengers and their families warned? Why didn't airline security detect the bomb? We now know that, prior to the bombing of Flight 103, FAA issued two security bulletins involving Frankfurt that alerted Pan Am and other U.S. airlines abroad about bomb threat dangers. One on November 18th about a bomb contained in a Toshiba Bombeat 453 radio which had been seized by West German police in an anti-terrorist raid in Frankfurt, and one on December 7 relating that a caller to the State Department in Helsinki said that a bombing attempt would be made before Christmas aboard a Pan Am plane traveling from Frankfurt to the United States. These two FAA Security Bulletins were reportedly two of only 27 Security Bulletins issued by FAA last year. There were reportedly hundreds of warnings related to air travel, but only 27 were considered important enough to achieve the high level status of security bulletins.

What did the airlines, FAA and the State Department do with this information? Why didn't they make a connection between the two bulletins and ensure that strict security was enforced when Frankfurt was involved in both bulletins. Why weren't pilots, who were on board security officers and flight crews not informed of the security bulletins? Were Pan Am crews even told about the November 4th FAA Security Bulletin, we just learned about yesterday which cautioned U.S. carriers operating in Europe about a possible hijacking? Given the high-level warnings in the November 18th and December 7th FAA bulletins, did Pan Am airport staff x-ray checked luggage originating at Frankfurt and Heathrow and coming into Frankfurt from other airports for radio cassettes? Why wasn't checked luggage matched to passengers? What efforts were made to question people? Were any Pan Am flights, including Flight 103 on December 21st, or any other U.S. airline flights originating in Europe searched for bombs? Did FAA make any specific recommendations to the airlines on ways of increasing security after the two FAA Security Bulletins on bomb threats were issued? We do not know if additional security measures were taken. We do know one thing, whatever measures were used, they weren't good enough.

In light of the British announcement asking all carriers into their airports to assure that radio cassettes be removed and banned from luggage, we ask whether the Secretary of Transportation and FAA will make this a matter of policy for all U.S. carriers and airports?

We have unanswered questions about the high number of empty seats-some reports say over 160-on Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21st, and Pan Am sales of half price tickets for the flights. According to some reports from travel agents, the flight was booked in October. If seats were cancelled, when were they cancelled, who cancelled them and why?

I know of a specific situation regarding the tickets. One of Miriam's best friends called Pan Am on December 15th and asked

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