The Pilots Get Angrier

EVEN before last week's skyjackings to Libya and Cuba, professional airline pilots throughout the U.S. and Europe were hopping mad about the rising threat that such acts of terrorism pose to themselves and their passengers. In a recent report to the Flight Safety Foundation, an organization devoted to airline safety problems, Eastern Air Lines Vice President Michael Fenello declared that U.S. airlines are "going backward instead of forward in dealing with the problem."

At a two-day meeting of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations in Mexico City next month, the angry pilots will press hard for a boycott of any country that offers sanctuary to hijackers or even appears to be encouraging them. A boycott would presumably apply to such states as Cuba, Algeria and Libya, which have made a practice of admitting hijackers. But even some of these nations have recently shown that they are getting tired of it. Twice Algeria has returned kidnapers' ransom money to U.S. airlines, and Cuba now jails many of the fugitives who fly to Havana on commandeered airliners. "If you hijack a plane to Cuba these days," says a British airline official, "you have an excellent chance of spending the rest of your life in prison."

The pilots are equally concerned about the absence of international agreement on how to deal with skyjackers. They are particularly annoyed at Britain and France, which have taken a relatively lenient attitude toward hijackers and have opposed the use of sky marshals because of the danger of a shootout in the air. British policy places top priority on the safety of the passengers and calls for pilots to comply with hijackers' demands whenever possible. The pilots are also disturbed by the casual attitude of the Italian government, which did not get around to drawing up a bill making skyjacking illegal until two months ago. The most hawkish position on skyjacking is that of the Israeli government, which advises El Al pilots: "There will be no deals, ever, regardless of the risks involved." Says an airline executive in London: "The Israelis are now prepared to let the terrorists blow up Golda Meir before they give in."

Some experts who have studied hijackings also favor a relatively mild attitude toward terrorists because they feel that in many cases toughness only makes a situation worse (see BEHAVIOR). Most pilots have little sympathy with that view, although generally they do not take as extreme a line as the Israelis. But they believe that the problem can only be solved if all nations agree that skyjacking is a crime and pledge to extradite or prosecute offenders. "As long as there are countries granting these people asylum," says Lufthansa Pilot Heino Caesar, "the problem will be with us."

In addition, the pilots are irritated by the lack of security on the ground. Such techniques as baggage searches, metal detectors and the use of hijacker "profiles," they feel, are grossly inadequate. "After all," says a Western intelligence official, "you can carry enough plastique in a toothpaste tube to blow up a plane. A detonator in a fountain pen or in a standard transistor radio is all it takes."

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To improve security, the pilots believe, governments and airlines alike are going to have to spend more money--at least $150 million during the first year. One expensive device currently being considered is a worldwide computer system, containing the names and descriptions of the world's 30 million passport holders, for the use of international airports. The computer would permit the rapid screening of passengers from all countries that participated in the plan, while others would be carefully frisked.

Airline pilots may not understand all the technicalities of international law as they pertain to hijackers. As a group, though, they are furious--and perhaps a bit desperate--over the inability of law-enforcement agencies to control the problem. The pilots' tough new proposals could, at least in the beginning, lead to greater risks and perhaps more casualties, but many pilots seem prepared to take that chance. "We can't solve the ills of the world through our governments," says a senior British pilot, "but we can damn well try harder to keep the terrorists off our airplanes."

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