Taking a commercial flight from a US airport generally requires a boarding pass to get near a gate, security screening controlled by the federal government and careful attention to carry-on bags.
No single day changed air travel more dramatically than September 11, 2001.
He tried to ignite them midflight but was subdued by passengers and crew. After the Dec. Shoe removal became mandatory less than five years later, when TSA also restricted outside liquids and gels. The device failed but caused a fire, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was severely burned. He pleaded guilty to attempting to destroy the aircraft. Traditional metal detectors could not detect the plastic explosives under Abdulmutallab’s clothes. TSA was already testing full-body scanners, and the incident persuaded authorities to fast-track the technology. Security screening continues to evolve. TSA has been expanding facial recognition technology to verify passengers’ identities. As of last month, newly manufactured passenger airplanes must have a retractable security gate between the cabin and flight deck to protect the cockpit when its reinforced main door is open. The Air Line Pilots Association wants the secondary barriers added to existing aircraft.
Almost 13 years before 9/11, a bomb destroyed a jumbo jet operated by a US airline as it flew at 31,000 feet over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. Investigators determined an explosive device hidden in a radio-cassette player had been inside a suitcase checked in Malta and ultimately transferred to Pan Am Flight 103 without an accompanying passenger. Three months and 11 days after 9/11, Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes. 22, 2001, incident, TSA and airlines asked passengers to remove their shoes voluntarily during security screening. On Christmas Day 2009, a passenger on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear as the plane approached Detroit.
The December 21, 1988, attack on the London-to-New York flight “stimulated the most significant changes in aviation security since the early 1970s,” former FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told the 9/11 Commission in 2003.
