REPORT OF THE - Archives - Syracuse University

The May inspection team in Frankfurt saw an attitude of "indifference" and "a complete
lack of management oversight of the (security) operation." The inspectors spent over a
week trying to correct the deficiencies. The Frankfurt inspection team telephoned their
findings to the FAA's principal security inspector for Pan Am. Stationed in New York
City, the principal security inspector was "shocked" by the findings. He had been
unaware of the problems.
One of the FAA inspectors at Frankfurt prepared a Trip Report, dated June 7, 1989, in
which he found the security operations of four other carriers at Frankfurt to be "good".
The reporting inspector judged Pan Am as "totally unsatisfactory," citing "major
violations" in all areas of the ACSSP.
The Trip Report left no doubt about the inspector's assessment. He said: "posture (of Pan
Am) considered unsafe, (and) all passengers flying out of Frankfurt on Pan Am are at
great risk."
As a result of the May inspections in Frankfurt and London, the FAA Brussels office sent
formal letters of investigation to Pan Am on May 25 and 26. The vast majority of FAA's
charges at Frankfurt concerned Pan Am's failure to search its service employees. Pan Am
responded that it interpreted the ACSSP to exclude its own uniformed employees from
screening and that the FAA has consented to this interpretation for years.
Pan Am did not dispute that its training and employee records should have been provided
in Frankfurt. The airline did dispute the findings that passengers had not been screened
adequately; only the record-keeping was "inadequate," Pan Am said. With respect to
other alleged violations, Pan Am was "taking steps to address the situation."
In the interim, the May 25 FAA letter of the recent Frankfurt investigation found its way
to the FAA Headquarters and eventually to Monte Belger, the FAA Associate
Administrator to whom the security division reports. Because the Brussels office did not
regularly send copies of its letters of investigation to Washington, Belger would rarely
see such a letter. He found the report, which in his view showed "continuing
noncompliance at Frankfurt," to be "unbelievable" and "frustrating."
After a briefing from the Frankfurt investigator, Belger set up a meeting on June 14, 1989
with Pan Am's corporate chief of security and with its vice president in charge of the
airport station managers. Belger and several other officials, including the Frankfurt
inspector, attended the meeting. The FAA officials pointed out the deficiencies found in
Pan Am's security operations in Frankfurt. They also said that "pressure to get Flight(s)
out seemed more important than security compliance" for Pan Am at Frankfurt,
explaining as well that some Pan Am security employees at Frankfurt had said "they are
forbidden from holding up a Flight."
According to notes made on June 14 by one of the FAA officials at the meeting, the Pan
Am executives replied that a "strong message" had already been sent to their manager in
Frankfurt and that a "noticeable difference" would be seen in Pan Am security operations
there.
The two Pan Am representatives who attended the entire June 14 meeting disagreed
about what had happened. One executive recalled in testimony before the Commission
that "the point of the meeting" was to hear what the FAA investigator had found and to
present to the FAA "a plan of what we were doing in Frankfurt." The other executive
testified that the subject of Pan Am's Frankfurt operations never came up during the June