Dem lawmaker files bill to close flight school identification loophole

{mosads}“Everyone, including U.S. citizens, should be vetted against the No Fly List before beginning flight training,” Thompson continued. “It’s common-sense, straightforward policy to close a security gap that inexplicably persists over a decade after 9/11.”

The measure has been dubbed the Flight School Security Act of 2012.

Lawmakers on the Transportation Security panel hammered TSA officials for the loophole on Wednesday.

“It is completely unacceptable that a decade after 9/11, GAO has uncovered weaknesses in our security controls that were supposed to be fixed a decade ago,” the chairman of the committee, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), said.

Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.), a former pilot and federal air marshal, agreed.

“[Zacarias] Moussaoui was actually flying the same simulators I flew at Northwest Airlines, so this is kind of a personal issue for me,” Cravaack said in reference to a French citizen who was convicted of conspiring to take part in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks after taking flight lessons in Oklahoma. 

Thompson said his measure was being co-sponsored by Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Danny Davis (D-Ill.) and Cedric Richmond (D-La.).