Slow on the Draw

By SALLY B. DONNELLY

Is the federal agency in charge of airline safety dragging its feet when it comes to arming pilots? It's looking that way to critics of the Transportation Security Administration. Over TSA objections, Congress last November passed legislation ordering the agency to come up with a program for training pilots to carry guns on flights and to have it under way by Feb. 25, 2003. The TSA now says there is no chance the training program will be up and running by that date. Proponents are outraged, claiming that the agency is quietly working to quash the program. "The TSA is trying to make arming pilots more complicated than it is," says Congressman John Mica, the Florida Republican who pushed the bill. "It's not the Manhattan Project."

Some pilots complain that the screening process the TSA is expected to require is too onerous, mandating two psychological evaluations. The pilots also object to the TSA's proposal to use revolvers rather than the faster-acting automatic weapons most federal law-enforcement agencies use, and to keep them in locked boxes, which would need several seconds to open in an attack. "The TSA is still fighting the law and what thousands of pilots want," says Steve Luckey, security chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association.

The TSA says it is working as quickly as possible and that the bill requires only that a program be prepared by Feb. 25. But an agency spokesman admits that the first training class--whenever it gets under way--will have only 48 pilots. The TSA also says it has no money for any classes after that. Mica plans to keep the pressure on. He has introduced a bill to close one loophole and arm pilots of cargo planes too. --By Sally B. Donnelly