'Amazing' Lapse in Security Cited at Logan Businessman Relates Ease of Check-in

by Ralph Ranalli
The Boston Globe
October 1, 2001

Traveling for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and hearing constant reports of increased security precautions, frequent flyer Jeffrey Phillips arrived at Logan Airport Saturday morning ready for anything.

Anything, he said, except no security at all.

Phillips, a 38-year-old self-employed drapery salesman from Natick, said he walked from his car in Logan's Central Parking lot to a US Airways gate at Terminal B completely unchecked by security of any kind. He was never searched and didn't even have to pass through a metal detector, he said.

''It's amazing - the worst disaster in the country's history, with some of it coming out of Boston, and then this happens,'' he said yesterday. ''It really makes me wonder.''

The security breach, when discovered, caused public safety officials to briefly empty one side of the terminal and require that all passengers pass through security again, delaying Phillips's Boston-to-Pittsburgh flight by about an hour.

An airline spokesman declined to say exactly what happened, and Massport officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The breach, however, appears to be the latest in a string of embarrassing post-attack security gaffes at Logan, the point of origin for two of the four jets hijacked and crashed by allegedly suicidal Islamic extremists at a cost of more than 6,000 lives.

Last week, embattled Massport executive director Virginia Buckingham disclosed that undercover State Police officers had smuggled a folding knife and a pocket full of bullets past airport security checkpoints, which are controlled by private security companies hired by the airlines.

Phillips said he had no luggage because he was only making a day trip to Michigan to take measurements for a drapery job. Already having purchased an ''e-ticket'' over the Internet and carrying only his car keys, a wallet, and a tape measure, he said he was told by an agent at the baggage counter that he could go straight to the gate.

Which he did.

The nearest security checkpoint was unmanned, with metal gates covering the front of the metal detectors.

An adjacent walkway into the gate area was wide open, however, and since there was no one around, he went through, assuming that security personnel had been moved farther inside the terminal.

Reaching the gate unchallenged, he said, he knew something was wrong.

''I just walked in and went over right to the gate,'' Phillips said. ''I thought it was a little peculiar.''

After receiving his seat assignment, he began to make his way back into the airport, only to meet a rush of state troopers and deputy US marshals.

Phillips said he was later told that other passengers had alerted authorities after seeing two other people take the same unguarded route to the gate that he did - through an exit walkway for arriving passengers that was supposed to have been guarded.

David Castelveter, a spokesman for US Airways, yesterday said only that the airline had a security ''concern'' at Logan Saturday that necessitated the rescreening of passengers.

''We will not discuss specifics,'' Castelveter said.

Phillips, meanwhile, said he will continue flying out of Logan for business, but not because Massport officials and politicians including former president George Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush have tried to assure the public that it is safe. He flies because he has to, he said.

''The sad part is that all the politicians are trying to get people's confidence up, but [the authorities] seem more interested in getting the economy running again than in real security,'' Phillips said.

© Copyright 2001 Boston Globe Electronic Publishing Inc.

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