DRUGS NOW, TERRORIST BOMBS LATER?

Hash stashed in planes sparks concern over security at airports

FRESH FROM the sun and rum of Jamaica, they got off their Air Canada Airbus
like any other returning holidayers last Sunday evening.

They picked up their luggage inside the terminal of Winnipeg International
Airport, answered questions from Customs officers and caught a ride home.

What they didn't know was that they shared their flight from Montego Bay
with an illegal shipment. Stashed behind paneling in the cockpit compartment
were 1.1 kilos of hashish. The smuggled drugs were later found by a
maintenance worker -- the seventh time since last summer that cocaine or
hash have been found hidden aboard Air Canada planes in Winnipeg.

Such incidents are not confined to Winnipeg's airport.

In Toronto last month, seven people were charged for operating an alleged
smuggling ring, including a manager of Pearson Airport's Terminal 3, who is
alleged to have used his security clearance to courier drug money.

Duncan Smith, a Toronto Customs spokesman, said quantities ranging from one
to 40 kilos are regularly seized in areas of planes that the public cannot
access.

"We find them in ceilings, in washroom panels, below the insulation," Smith
said. "We even find luggage that are not checked bags."

In Miami, 30 American Airlines baggage handlers and ground crew were among
58 people arrested in August following a two-year, drug-smuggling sting. It
is alleged that employees sold their security clearances, and that drugs
were often placed onboard planes while they sat on the ground in supposedly
secure areas. At the same time in New York, seven airline employees were
charged with running 4,500 kilos of marijuana into that city.

Such cases are raising concerns about the security of aircraft. After all,
if smugglers can infiltrate security to plant drugs, what is stopping a
terrorist from planting a bomb?

But Air Canada and other airlines say smuggling and terrorism are like
apples and oranges. They are extremely different and the presence of one
doesn't lead to the presence of another.

Still, that doesn't answer why carriers don't monitor their aircraft here
and abroad more closely, so their planes and employees aren't used as
unwitting drug mules.

Federal NDP transportation critic Bev Desjarlais says the series of drug
seizures here in Winnipeg is cause for grave concern. She is calling for a
full investigation.

"There has to be a review of what's in place and the security access people
have in aircraft," said Desjarlais, MP for Churchill.

"The fact (the kilo of hashish) was behind a panel in the aircraft -- if
someone can do that on an aircraft, what else can be on the aircraft?"

Her concerns are echoed by Max Johnson, Manitoba president of the
Association of Canadian Travel Agents.

"There are huge security implications," Johnson said. "If someone can so
easily put hash in there, somebody else could easily put a bomb in there."

Transport Canada, Air Canada and others, however, maintain that is not the
case. They say there is no link between smuggling and terrorism. It's a
heckuva lot easier, the argument goes, to find someone who is willing to
hide drugs for money than to find someone who will kill hundreds of people.

Air Canada spokeswoman Laura Cooke said entirely different types of people
are engaged in each crime.

"The profile of an individual who undertakes terrorist activity is a very
different profile than someone engaged in smuggling," she said.

Barry Prentice, director of the University of Manitoba's Transport
Institute, said there is a huge profit motive to conspire in drugs, but
terrorist acts are often carried out by a lone radical or lunatic.

"I wouldn't read from that they found drugs, there is a risk for bombs,"
Prentice said.

He said no security system can be guaranteed foolproof, but the drug
incidents give him no qualms about flying.

Harry Gow, national president of lobby group Transport 2000 Canada, said
drugs are not a safety problem. Bombs, he noted, are more likely to be
brought onboard in luggage and detonated with a timer than to be hidden
within the plane. Overall, airport security is more stringent than it has
ever been, he said.

"Drugs are ... an economic problem rather than a safety problem. If drugs
are sitting in the bay of the plane, they are not going to hurt you," Gow
said from Ottawa.

Transport Canada spokesman Phil Hurcomb said Canadian airports are safe.

"Security and anti-terrorism is what it is designed for. It is not focused
on whether people might or might not perform an illegal act," Hurcomb said.

Airline and airport employees with access to planes are screened for
terrorist profiles and undergo background checks of criminal and credit
records, Hurcomb said.

Johnson said such a response misses the point. "Screening employees is not
the issue. The issue is access to aircraft."

Union officials for pilots and flight attendants also expressed concerns
over the seizures.

"It does raise questions of security of aircraft while they are on the
ground, and of access to planes," said Pete Foster, Toronto-based safety rep
for the Air Canada Pilots Association.

Cindy Ponzo, national safety representative for the flight attendants union,
said the incidents are a concern. Ponzo said she will raise security issues
with Air Canada management.

Cooke said one reason the seizures are occurring in Winnipeg is that
aircraft maintenance is carried out here, and maintenance workers are
finding the drugs during checks.

In the latest find, an Air Canada employee uncovered the hash and called
Customs officials, who notified police. Winnipeg police are investigating
all the incidents.

However, Insp. Gary Walker has said that police have very little to go on
when drugs turn up during a maintenance check. There is often no way of
knowing where the drugs were put on a plane, or where they were destined, he
said.

Peter Hildebrand, acting regional manager of the Transportation Safety
Board, said his agency could launch an investigation if it felt the
situation was causing a danger to aviation safety. So far, that is not the
case, he said.

"In cases like that, we defer quite a bit to police authority," Hildebrand
said. "It would be premature for us to take a role."