All West European airports have been put on a state of alert following reports that a small group of Japanese kamikaze volunteers were preparing an attack against an Israel-bound plane, authorities here reported today. (In Copenhagen, Danish authorities were Informed today that a group of members of the Japanese Red Army, three of whose members were responsible for the May 30 massacre at Lydda Airport, were planning to attack an Israel-bound plane at the Copenhagen Kastrup Airport. In response to the threat, authorities ordered armed guards, police and soldiers stationed since this morning along the tarmac as well as in the Kastrup terminal building. The Israeli ambassador to Denmark, Moshe Leshem, said in a television interview that local authorities were “fully aware of the situation” and could handle any danger.)
At Paris Orly Airport, hundreds of airport police and border guards have been checking all passengers and luggage. Passengers are required to pass Individual personal checks during which their pockets are searched and luggage opened for examination.
A Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporter who flew In yesterday from Geneva reported that such checks were being applied to all Air France passengers, Including those flying on European lines only. An Air France official said these precautions were considered necessary because passengers might board a plane for a European destination and “then transfer en route where they will no longer be searched.” It was recalled that the three Japanese gunmen who committed the massacre at Lydda Airport boarded an Air France plane at Rome, where there was no check of passengers or luggage.
At Geneva and Zurich airports, planes are now parked far from the air terminal and passengers are required to pass a metal detecting device. Police armed with submachine guns surround all planes from the moment they land until they take off. Customs officials and police search all passengers and luggage at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.
Stringent precautions are in effect at Athens airport where jeeps with police bearing machineguns at the ready patrol the airport and soldiers are guarding all planes. Armed guards are stationed in the passport control and luggage delivery rooms. Passengers are being required to land or board planes one at a time.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
