This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Enjoy new investment freedom! Get the tools you need to successfully manage your portfolio from Harrisdirect. Start with award-winning research. Then add access to round-the-clock customer service from Series-7 trained representatives. Open an account today and receive a $100 credit! http://www.nytimes.com/ads/Harrisdirect.html \----------------------------------------------------------/ Flight Crews' Reaction Mixed on a Lack of Pre-9/11 Alerts May 18, 2002 By EDWARD WONG Some pilots and flight attendants are criticizing airlines for not passing on to flight crews general warnings of terrorist threats that the federal government gave to the carriers before Sept. 11. But others say such vague warnings are useless and would have made little difference in the way they went about their daily routine. >From last June to August, the Federal Aviation Administration issued 11 advisories to security directors in the airline industry, most of them of a general nature like "American interests may be targeted by extremist groups." Some crew members are now saying that those advisories, no matter how vague, should have been passed on to them, and that airlines that still do not disseminate such warnings should do so. "There's concern that they weren't responsive, that they didn't pass on potential hijack warnings prior to Sept. 11," said Jeff Zack, a spokesman for the Association of Flight Attendants. "We still continue to be concerned, because they still don't pass on warnings if a new threat is identified." But Gregg Overman, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 11,500 pilots at American Airlines and 2,300 at T.W.A., said that since last December, when Richard C. Reid was charged with trying to blow up an American Airlines flight with a bomb hidden in a shoe, the airline had been passing on government warnings to pilots. That information can help, said Rob Held, a pilot at American, because "there are things that both the airline and its employees can do differently and more effectively if they were aware of a threat, even if the threat was of a general nature." But the airlines have said that the federal warnings they received before Sept. 11 were so general that they did not merit any change in operations, and some pilots and flight attendants agree. Issuing vague advisories to crews could even cause unnecessary panic, they say. "We purposefully don't flood information to the flight crews and attendants unless there's a need to know," said Stephen Luckey, a former Northwest pilot who is now chairman of the security committee at the Air Line Pilots Association. "One of the tactics that terrorists use all the time is to flood the environment with threats that aren't credible." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/18/politics/18WARN.html?ex=1022738274&ei=1&en=16a87ab7559cc928 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company