FLIGHT SCHOOLS' SECURITY CRASH: SCHUMER
By GEMMA JONES

March 3, 2008 -- The feds have allowed 8,000 foreign students to attend US flight schools without proper security checks, leaving open the same gaping hole used by the 9/11 terrorists, Sen. Chuck Schumer charged yesterday.

The stunning security lapse by the Transportation Security Administration is occurring at schools such as the one in Florida where hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained, he said.

"This is 9/11, or at least the circumstances that led to 9/11, all over again," Schumer (D-NY) claimed.

"We don't even know who they are. We don't know if some of these people are on a terrorist watch list."

He called for an urgent audit of the 8,000 foreign pilots who were trained at the 3,500 US flight schools in the past two years.

The TSA denied the charges.

"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," the agency said on its Web site.

The TSA said it conducted an analysis that concluded the real number of students not checked was not 8,000, but 857. All 857 were subsequently checked, it said, "and not a single person posed a threat to national security."

Schumer's charges echoed those made in an ABC News report Wednesday, claiming that TSA inspections are spotty and sloppy.

"If there was ever a place for the TSA to focus its efforts and beef up security, this one should be a no-brainer," he 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," he said.

Schumer called for stiffer fines for any flight school that accepts a foreign student who has not undergone the proper security checks.

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