Second British airport fails security test

LONDON (Reuters) -- Inspectors breached security checks at Manchester Airport, the second British airport reported to have failed such a test, officials said on Wednesday.

News of the breach in security at the busy hub in northwest England came a day after reports of a similar lapse at Stansted Airport, north of London.

"We don't go into details of procedures, but I can confirm an inspection revealed a deficiency in security procedures at Manchester Airport," a spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) told Reuters.

	MESSAGE BOARD
What are your biggest concerns about air safety?

Manchester airport authorities confirmed a security lapse but said it was a one-time incident and had been dealt with.

"The routine DETR inspection identified a test failure in security in July," a statement said.

"A thorough investigation was immediately carried out by the airport and the situation was quickly resolved to the DETR's and the airport's satisfaction. Security remains a top priority at Manchester."

According to The Sun tabloid a temporary guard at Manchester missed a handgun tucked into the back of an inspector's pants despite two searches -- the second after the metal detector went off and the security manager told him to try again.

The guard was sacked, the paper said. It also reported that staff monitoring an X-ray machine had failed to notice that an inspector's bag contained a replica bomb complete with wires.

"A terrorist would have no problem at Manchester -- the security was disgusting," an unidentified guard who later quit told The Sun. "I was horrified how slack it was."

On Tuesday the same paper reported that DETR inspectors had also smuggled a gun and fake bomb past security guards at Stansted.

The inspections at Manchester and Stansted, Britain's third and fourth busiest passenger airports, were part of an ongoing programme of checks at UK airports, the DETR said.

Although there have been incidents of hijacked aircraft landing in Britain, the security record of British airports is good.

In 1986 an attempt to plant a bomb on an El Al airliner flying from London's Heathrow airport was foiled.

The most notorious incident was the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, but there is no suggestion that bomb was brought aboard the plane in Britain. Two Libyan men currently being tried in the Netherlands under Scottish law are accused of planting the bomb at Malta.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Manchester Airport
Stansted Airport
Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.