Washington, Nov 21: The Homeland Security Department announced new rules to better identify cargo shipped into and out of the country, and said yesterday that it ordered airlines to conduct more thorough daily inspections of their airplanes. The airline security directive, issued Monday to all commercial passenger airlines that fly within the United States, followed an embarrassing incident in which box cutters remained hidden in jetliners' lavatories for five weeks. In October, Nathaniel Heatwole, a student from Damascus, Maryland, hid box cutters and other banned items aboard two Southwest Airlines planes, where they were found by maintenance staff.

Brian Turmail, a department spokesman, said the directive includes a catalog of areas that must be checked. Previously, he said, there wasn't enough clarity about what kinds of compartments needed to be inspected. The new cargo rules require electronic manifests identifying freight shipped by truck, rail, plane and ship to be sent to customs and border protection officials before the goods reach the border.

"They'll look for trends and they'll look for red flags, such as mislabeled cargo or a record of past violations that might cause a container to be labeled high risk," said homeland security secretary tom ridge, in announcing the new rules. Customs now gets some advance information on cargo carried by plane, rail and truck. The information, though, is provided voluntarily and isn't always complete. Cargo declarations no longer will be allowed to arrive on paper with a shipment.

Bureau Report