Neighbor Island airports to install security devices

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

Security checkpoints at three Neighbor Island airports will be beefed up by the end of the year with the addition of explosives-detection machines.

The airports in Hilo, Lihu'e and Kona were on a list released yesterday by the federal Transportation Security Administration for improvements.

The Transportation Security Administration was created in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to oversee security and baggage screening at the nation's airports.

The agency faces a Dec. 31 deadline for inspecting all checked bags for explosives and identified 100 airports where passenger checkpoints will be overhauled.

Not included on the list were the Honolulu and Kahului airports, which have adequate facilities to do the screening, said acting Airports Administrator Roy Sakata.

Sakata said there are explosive-detecting devices at the two Big Island and Kaua'i airports, but not enough to meet the 100 percent baggage screening requirements. He declined to say how many machines will be installed at the airports.

"These airports were identified to have more of a need, a higher priority," Sakata said. "The orders are huge. I don't know how they can supply all of them. But the (Transportation Security Administration) is setting the priority as far as who gets what."

Federal teams are scheduled to visit the airports this week to draft plans for the new checkpoints and for installing the equipment.

At the Honolulu airport there was an adequate number of explosive-detecting devices even before Sept. 11, Sakata said.

"We were fortunate that our federal security manager had the foresight before 9/11 and we were able to acquire these machines. So when 9/11 occurred we were ahead of the ball game as far as number of machines," he said.

In a report released recently, the Honolulu airport was tied for third best in the nation when it came to detecting dummy weapons. The Transportation Security Administration tests showed that security screeners here failed to detect the weapons 10 percent of the time, compared with the national average of about 25 percent.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.