On the Aggressive Defensive

The events that led to Entebbe, the Israelis say, reaffirm an argument they have made for years: skyjackings will continue unless foreign airlines become as cautious as Israel's own El Al. They note that only one El Al plane was ever successfully skyjacked. That was in 1968, and the airline has been on the "aggressive defensive" ever since.

The Israelis say they spend $ 15 million a year on various measures to maintain El Al's security. On the ground, El Al is more demanding than most airlines in screening passengers for the traits and psychological characteristics --nervousness, one-way tickets--that fit the skyjacker's "profile." Doubtful passengers are refused tickets. Those boarding El Al planes can be subjected to the most thorough baggage and body searches in the industry. Far from resenting such searches, report airline officials, most passengers are happy to undergo them for the sake of security.

Aloft, El Al planes are veritable flying fortresses. Cabin walls have been strengthened to resist bullets and grenade fragments; flight-deck doors are armored and locked. Crews can survey passengers over closed-circuit TV; pilots are trained to flip their planes into violent maneuvers to knock a skyjacker off his feet. Lavatories are periodically checked. To keep potential skyjackers from becoming familiar with routines, however, security arrangements are also periodically changed.

One arrangement never changes.

Every flight has a squad of security officers, or "sheriffs," scattered among the passengers--usually two or three on Boeing 707 flights and six to eight on 747 jumbos. The sheriffs, mostly combat veterans, carry Beretta pistols under their coats and are primed for trouble. In 1970, in the only other skyjack attempt aboard an El Al plane, they shot one of the two terrorists to death over the North Sea and disarmed the other, the celebrated Palestinian Leila Khaled.

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