NEW YORK -- Sen. Charles Schumer charged Sunday that federal authorities are failing to ensure that foreign students attending U.S. flight schools undergo required background checks.
"This is 9/11, or at least the failure that led up to 9/11, all over again," said Schumer, a New York Democrat.
A law passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks requires Transportation Security Administration background checks in advance of flight instruction, but Schumer said that many of the more than 3,500 flight schools in the United States are enrolling foreign students before they have been cleared.
A TSA spokesman denied that the agency was lax with background checks.
"Each and every foreign national that applies for flight training at any FAA-certified school anywhere in the world is checked by TSA prior to beginning that training," said the spokesman, Jon Allen.
He said the TSA has conducted more than 8,000 inspections at flight schools and works closely with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to ensure only properly checked, legal aliens are attending flight schools.
But Schumer said at a news conference at his Manhattan office that TSA enforcement is spotty and inadequate. He claimed that more than 8,000 foreign student pilots who have not been cleared by the TSA had been able to enroll and obtain pilot licenses.
"If there was ever a place for TSA to focus its efforts and beef up security, this one should be a no-brainer," Schumer said. "It is simply unbelievable that TSA would look the other way on the gaping security loophole that led directly to the 9/11 attacks. Thousands upon thousands of people are attending flight schools and becoming pilots that legally should have never gotten through the front door without clearing the background check first."
In a letter to Federal Aviation Authority Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell and TSA Administrator Kip Hawley, Schumer called for an audit and cross check of FAA certification records with TSA records indicating who has completed the background check and who may have been approved without the proper documents.
Schumer also called for tougher fines for any school that knowingly accepts a foreign student who should not have been certified. Right now the FAA and TSA can levy civil fines ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 depending on the size of the school.
Schumer also argued the TSA should do a background check on all flight-school applicants to weed out anyone who may have used a forged document.
A law passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks requires Transportation Security Administration background checks in advance of flight instruction, but Schumer said that many of the more than 3,500 flight schools in the United States are enrolling foreign students before they have been cleared.
A TSA spokesman denied that the agency was lax with background checks.
"Each and every foreign national that applies for flight training at any FAA-certified school anywhere in the world is checked by TSA prior to beginning that training," said the spokesman, Jon Allen.
He said the TSA has conducted more than 8,000 inspections at flight schools and works closely with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to ensure only properly checked, legal aliens are attending flight schools.
But Schumer said at a news conference at his Manhattan office that TSA enforcement is spotty and inadequate. He claimed that more than 8,000 foreign student pilots who have not been cleared by the TSA had been able to enroll and obtain pilot licenses.
"If there was ever a place for TSA to focus its efforts and beef up security, this one should be a no-brainer," Schumer said. "It is simply unbelievable that TSA would look the other way on the gaping security loophole that led directly to the 9/11 attacks. Thousands upon thousands of people are attending flight schools and becoming pilots that legally should have never gotten through the front door without clearing the background check first."
In a letter to Federal Aviation Authority Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell and TSA Administrator Kip Hawley, Schumer called for an audit and cross check of FAA certification records with TSA records indicating who has completed the background check and who may have been approved without the proper documents.
Schumer also called for tougher fines for any school that knowingly accepts a foreign student who should not have been certified. Right now the FAA and TSA can levy civil fines ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 depending on the size of the school.
Schumer also argued the TSA should do a background check on all flight-school applicants to weed out anyone who may have used a forged document.
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jtormey3 wrote on Oct 9, 2008 8:03 PM:
Sources tell Quiet Rockland that U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary Mary Peters is now making preparations to brief the “new Administrator” of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
In a related story, FAA promotes Ruth Leverenz to “Acting Deputy Administrator” as Internet-listed second-in-command Key Official, in anticipation of Acting Administrator Robert Allan “Bobby” Sturgell’s departure from FAA office:
http://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/leverenz/
#
For the full story, please see:
http://www.bobbysturgell.net "
Quiet Rockland wrote on Mar 2, 2008 11:17 PM:
It is an outrageous abomination that Bobby Sturgell and his FAA cannot even bother to coordinate with other federal agencies like the TSA and the USDOT so as to ensure: (A) that those that would harm our country do not even enter, much less be trained at and matriculate from, FAA-certified flight schools; (B) that those that would harm our country cannot in any way gain entry to, much less work for, FAA-certified aircraft repair facilities worldwide which may work on fuel-laden, passenger-filled aircraft bound for the USA, as discussed at the February 29, 2008 Senate Commerce Committee hearing at which Sturgell and USDOT head Mary Peters testified, now available on the Internet; (C) that those that would harm our country be required to spend at least more time than the perfunctory 18 seconds through the TSA cordon at Newark Liberty International Airport as passengers have recently experienced at EWR, as reported by the press this week.
Bobby Sturgell is a harmful and dangerous individual whose malice and incompetence must be summarily rejected by the further outcry of the American people. Bobby Sturgell must be ousted from office as current Acting Head of the FAA. It is abundantly clear that he is ONLY acting – and for that matter, he is a bad actor.
Moreover, Bobby Sturgell is a liar who has already perjured himself repeatedly to save his own proverbial reptilian skin, and to protect solely the interests of the monied aeromercantile complex for which Sturgell regularly shills.
Citizens in Rockland County, NY, as well as citizens in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, were mouth-agape aghast while watching the evasive and false under oath testimony and answers given by Bobby Sturgell on Thursday, February 7, 2008, to the Senate Commerce Committee. Our citizen group Quiet Rockland has thanked Congress for making the webcast testimony of Bobby Sturgell and the proceedings generally, available to all of us, real time and now archived, through RealPlayer software, on the Senate website.
Bobby Sturgell arrogantly insulted Senators Boxer, McCaskill, and Lautenberg, among all of the rest of us, with his persistent utter refusal to answer the most simple of direct Yes-or-No questions. Sturgell made Watergate conspirators sound like they testified on sodium pentothal by comparison. Senator McCaskill asked the core essential question: Do you think air traffic controller fatigue was a contributing factor[?], to runway incursion mishaps, and the slipperiest of eels, the eel of Sturgell, the Sturg-eel, sought to squirm away in the scripted slime of non answers.
Bobby Sturgell, acting FAA head for three months, testified that he had no prior knowledge of the San Diego aircraft near-miss a few weeks ago?
LIE.
Sturgell testified that he had no prior knowledge of recent Newark, NJ departures flying out in the wrong direction in the past few weeks?
LIE.
The nomination of Bobby Sturgell as proposed FAA Administrator should not be confirmed. Instead, after he first personally apologizes to Senators Boxer, McCaskill, and Lautenberg, Bobby Sturgell should then be INDICTED - for contempt of Congress, for rendering perjured testimony under oath, and for already putting millions of otherwise innocent and unsuspecting Americans directly at risk and in the way of harm. Quiet Rockland has now faxed every Senator on the Commerce Committee, asking them to please refer this matter to the AG, IG, GAO, and a Special Prosecutor, and to please now cook this eel.
"
RAP wrote on Mar 2, 2008 3:37 PM: