Deadly Deliveries?

By DAVID ELLIS/

Are next-day-delivery services vulnerable to terrorist attack? A former courier for Federal Express thinks so and claims that he was dismissed when he tried to warn the company. Max Cornelssen, 49, notes that when shippers use commercial flights, packages receive insufficient inspection before being dispatched. He fears that hidden explosive devices could wreak destruction on the U.S. commercial fleet. When Cornelssen submitted a plan for package inspections, he was put on suspension and later fired. FedEx says the dismissal was for unrelated violations of policy. The company's security chief points out that only about 1,300 of the 1.3 million packages shipped daily fly commercially, adding that the company is "confident" that procedures ferret out suspicious parcels.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen