Concern at the efficiency of American air security intensified yesterday after 20 workers at Boston airport, including six baggage screeners, were arrested and charged for allegedly lying to get jobs there.
Federal investigators examining the backgrounds of 3,500 employees at Logan International - the departure point for two of the aeroplanes used in the September 11 attacks - found that the workers had used deception to apply for jobs or for security clearance to work at the airport.
A similar pre-Olympic sweep at Salt Lake City led to 271 people being fired.
"The hard lesson of September 11 was that there is still more that could and should be done to tighten airport security and ensure the flying public's safety," said US attorney Michael Sullivan.
None of those charged was suspected of terrorist links, he said, but 15 would face additional charges of being in the United States illegally.
The screeners had originally been taken on by Argenbright, the private company which has been accused of numerous violations of federal regulations before and after the terrorist attacks. Argenbright staff were operating security checkpoints on September 11 at the departure airports at Newark in New Jersey and Dulles in Washington.
"If they tell us it's valid, we don't know it's phoney," a spokesman for Massport, the Massachusetts state agency which operates Logan airport, said yesterday.
Shortly after the Boston arrests, it emerged that Eyad Alrababah from New Jersey had been charged with helping to supply fake driving licences and ID cards to some of the September 11 hijackers. Mr Alrababah turned himself in to police at the end of September, but said he had no idea of the terrorists' plans.
Meanwhile another man, Abdel Rahman Omar Tawfiq Alfauru, an illegal Jordanian immigrant, was charged with obtaining a fake ID from Mr Alrababah.
