Flights get extra scrutiny

last updated 8 January 2015

Istanbul

U.S.-bound flights originating in Turkey and Russia will get extra security screenings, the U.S. Transportation Safety Administration said this week. The U.S. can’t control foreign countries’ security measures, but it is now requiring Delta, Aeroflot, and Turkish Air to conduct thorough checks for explosives at boarding gates in Moscow and Istanbul. Airline employees have been instructed to take out the insoles of shoes and to dismantle any heel higher than 1 inch. Turkey and Russia have both had terrorist airplane bombings in the past year. In Russia, a Chechen suicide bomber with no ticket bribed her way onto the airplane just before departure.