Icao Official Says It B Duty of Country Where Luggage is Loaded to Check for Explosives

An International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) official said today that It was the. duty of the security forces In the country where the luggage was loaded to check for explosives. An Air France official in New York has placed the airport of boarding for the three killers as Da Vinci In Rome.

The ICAO official said that the only measure which could have been taken to prevent last night’s catastrophe would have been a serious electronic control of luggage at the point of departure because at the time of arrival it is already too late. He also said that some nations “still refuse to check everything” and in his opinion, checking everything amounts to a point of diminishing results.

MANY COUNTRIES TALK. FEW ACT

Mrs. Rosalie Galbraith, director of public relations for the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said that year after year many resolutions have been passed In order to have the governments of various countries adopt necessary measure for preventing acts against the security and life of passengers and aircraft.

According to Mrs. Galbraith, Knut Hammarskjold, director general of the IATA, had recently met with UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim In New York and asked that something be done In order that governments should put “new teeth” In the anti-hijacking convention which was adopted In The Hague on December 16,1970.

At a Montreal convention last Nov., clauses concerning sabotage, the bombing of aircraft on the ground and air piracy were added to The Hague convention document. But as yet, only two of the 39 signatory states who attended the Montreal convention have ratified the convention. They are Trinidad-Tobago and Panama. Ten ratifications are necessary before the Montreal convention can come Into force.