James Oberstar: “If there had been a simple regulation in place in December 1988, Pan Am 103 likely never would have happened, and that…”

“If there had been a simple regulation in place in December 1988, Pan Am 103 likely never would have happened, and that is passenger bag match, an issue that later, the Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism appointed by President Bush on which I served and my good colleague at the time, John Paul Hammerschmidt from this body, recommended. But it was recommended earlier in hearings that I had chaired as Chair of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight that we have passenger bag match. Because when the aircraft arrived from Malta at Frankfurt, Germany, for the beginning of the Pan Am 103 trip and a bag was transferred from the Malta aircraft to the 727 of Pan Am to go on to London, the bag went on, but the passenger did not. If we had the rule in place that if the passenger is not on, the bag comes off, that bomb would never had been on board that plane. Today, we have passenger bag match at American airports as a result of the Transportation Security Act that we passed in the aftermath of September 11.”