Bombing Foiled : El Al Keeps Its Security Secret and Effective

JERUSALEM —  It was an incident that might have been lifted from the pages of a paperback thriller.

Something about the appearance of a small suitcase carried by a pregnant woman about to board an airplane triggers an instinctive alarm in the mind of a sharp-eyed security agent. He checks the bag and finds 10 pounds of plastic explosive hidden in a false bottom.

The discovery, less than half an hour before scheduled takeoff, probably saves the lives of nearly 400 people on the flight.

Agent’s Identity Not Told

In a novel, the agent would be a hero, and the secret of what made him suspicious would be revealed. But this was real life--the aborted attempt last Thursday to smuggle a bomb aboard an El Al Boeing 747 about to leave on a flight from London to Tel Aviv. And if the airline has its way, the identity of the El Al agent who foiled the plot as well as his methods are likely to remain a secret to all but a relative handful of other security professionals.

All that El Al spokesman Nachman Klieman would say about the London agent is that he and his colleagues “were doing their job. This is what they were trained to do.”

As a public relations professional, Klieman admitted in an interview to some frustration at being unable to boast about this latest example of the kind of procedures that have earned El Al Israel Airlines the reputation of being perhaps the most secure airline in the non-Communist world against terrorist attack.

However, he added, “the secret of our success is that we don’t talk about our security procedures.” While American carriers such as Trans World Airlines and Pan American are suffering a sharp drop in transatlantic business because of the rise in terrorism in Europe and the Middle East during the last year or so, El Al is actually gaining business as a result, Klieman said.

There have been cancellations by worried would-be travelers, he admitted. More than offsetting those, however, “is a tendency of travel agents and passengers who wish to continue with their vacation plans or their visit to Israel to switch to El Al,” Klieman said.

Just two nights after the foiled sabotage attempt at London’s Heathrow Airport, for example, more than 1,100 passengers flew from London to Tel Aviv aboard El Al. “And if we could have provided more aircraft, we could have had even more,” Klieman said.

“One of the other things we’ve seen is a tremendous demand now, especially from the United States, for nonstop service,” he added. “People who realize that Israel is a safe destination and do wish to continue with their travel plans book on nonstop flights in order to bypass Europe.”

More than 100 El Al flights a week connect Tel Aviv with 30 destinations in Africa, Europe and North America. In the United States, El Al serves Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

No Officials Available

Klieman refused to make any El Al security officials available for an interview, but he said the only successful hijacking of an El Al airliner was the first one--in July, 1968, when a flight was diverted from Rome to Algiers.

“At that time, El Al began taking steps to counter” terrorists, he said.

While its security procedures are secret, El Al is famous among travelers worldwide for its meticulous baggage and body searches. El Al passengers must check in at least two hours ahead of flight time, instead of the more normal one hour, to allow time for security checks.

Security agents question passengers about where they have been, where they are going, whom they know in Israel and whether they are carrying packages for any third party. To those who haven’t heard them before--and even to some who have--the questions sometimes seem impertinent, bordering on an invasion of privacy.

Long Lines, Grumbling

But despite frequent grumbling in the long lines typical of El Al check-in counters, Klieman said, the airline never gets formal complaints from passengers about its security procedures.

“I think especially in times like these, the extra time (for check-in) is insignificant, and nobody is really concerned with it,” Klieman said.

It has also been reported that El Al has armed guards aboard all its flights.

Trained El Al security agents are on duty wherever the airline flies to supplement normal airport security. “It may be unusual, but it’s very effective,” Klieman said.

“It’s not a question of whether we trust other people’s security,” El Al’s London spokesman, Lee Silverman, explained after last Thursday’s incident. “We feel happiest handling our own security.”

Checked by British

Heathrow Police Supt. Stewart Higgins conceded that Dublin-born Anne-Marie Murphy, the woman who police said unknowingly carried the 10-pound bomb hidden in her carry-on luggage Thursday, had passed through normal British security checks on her way to the boarding area for the Tel Aviv flight from London.

“It appears from the evidence that (the bomb) was discovered through the keen eye of El Al security,” Higgins said.

He added: “The El Al security guard at the desk was not happy about the appearance of her luggage, searched it and found what he considered a suspect device.”

Israeli officials frequently say that if other countries and other airlines would follow El Al’s security example, there would be far fewer successful terrorist attacks.

‘Couldn’t Have Happened’

After the incident earlier this month, when a bomb concealed on board resulted in the deaths of four American passengers on a TWA flight from Rome to Athens, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said in an interview with U.S. television: “I believe it couldn’t have happened in our airport. The checkup would have been much more severe and serious, and the same would be true on the plane.”

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin has also said that terrorists cannot succeed against El Al.

Such comments make some officials here nervous, fearing that they will only make terrorists that much more determined to attack the Israeli airline. However, as one Israeli journalist who frequently covers terrorism noted: “El Al is already at the top of their list of targets. It can’t go any higher.”

To the extent that terrorists have had any success against El Al since 1968, it has generally been on the ground. The Hebrew-language newspaper Yediot Aharonot on Friday listed 23 attacks against El Al targets during the last 18 years. Most involved attacks on offices, check-in counters and airline employees.

Rome, Vienna Attacks

The most recent incident before last week’s attempt were the nearly simultaneous terrorist attacks last Dec. 27 near El Al check-in counters at the Rome and Vienna airports. Twenty people, including five Americans and four of the terrorists, died as a result of those assaults, blamed by U.S. and Israeli officials on members of an organization led by renegade Palestinian Abu Nidal with the support and encouragement of Col. Moammar Kadafi’s regime in Libya.

Security at Tel Aviv airport has been considered perhaps the toughest in the world ever since a May, 1972, attack there in which three Japanese terrorists killed 26 civilians and wounded 76 others.

In El Al’s view, one of the main reasons there have not been more successful attacks against Israel’s international airport and its national airline is that El Al keeps the terrorists guessing--something it hopes to keep doing.

“Rather than seeking a high profile,” commented Klieman, “I think it’s in the best of our interests, as well as our passengers, that we maintain a low profile.”