US defends flight clampdowns
2004-01-03 09:36
Washington - The US government on Friday defended its year-end security clampdown, which has seen seven US-bound flights cancelled and others escorted to US airports by F-16 jets amid fears of a terrorist attack.
US authorities toughened passenger checks on flights from France and Britain in the past week. That has contributed to the number of cancellations, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said.
Suited-up jet fighter pilots remained on high alert on Friday at bases across the United States ready to intercept - and shoot down if necessary - any hijacked commercial airliners, according to officials.
Seven flights heading for the United States - three from France, two from Britain and two from Mexico - have been cancelled due to security fears since the US government heightened its nationwide terror alert from "elevated" to "high" on December 21.
And on Friday, the takeoff of an Aeromexico flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles was delayed for 90 minutes while Mexican and US security officers searched passengers and their luggage, airport sources said.
Commenting on the Mexican flights, Rachel Sunbarger, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said: "We had specific information about potential threat to those flights and we shared that information with the Mexican government, and the Mexican government made the decision to cancel the flights."
Aeromexico assistant director Fernando Cevallos said in Mexico City that the flight cancellations December 31 and January 1 had cost the airline more than $150m, including the housing, feeding and compensation for passengers whose tickets were rendered worthless.
US Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson said the cancellations were justified but it may never be known if a terrorist attack had been stopped.
"We made the right decisions," he said in an interview with CNN television, adding that the decisions to halt the flights were "based on specific intelligence concerns that we have."
Three Paris-to-Los Angeles Air France flights were cancelled on December 24 and 25.
US intelligence had identified potential terrorists on the halted flights, but French and US officials now admit that none of the names belonged to terrorist suspects.
US officials now screen Air France and British Airways passenger lists at least one hour before a flight leaves French or British soil, the DHS spokesman explained.