Airport security in the United States, strengthened to repel terrorists since last month, may still be no match for the Busse Stealth Hawk knife, marketed in a weapons catalog as "invisible to metal detectors."
The knife is among a class of composite and ceramic blades that are difficult or impossible to detect with current airport security equipment, according to security experts and knife manufacturers.
Such knives, sold openly and legally through retail stores, mail-order catalogs and on the Internet, expose a major loophole in the efforts to prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings, which apparently were executed with small cutters and knives previously thought harmless.
Since the attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration has rescinded its old rule allowing knives with blades shorter than 4 inches aboard flights. Now, "cutting instruments of any kind and composition," either carried by passengers or in their carry-on luggage, are prohibited.
But enforcing that new rule relies on equipment that is largely ineffective against nonmetallic knives that are as sharp and as hard as steel. FAA officials acknowledge the system's vulnerability to plastic weapons, but also insist security nevertheless is adequate.
Congressional and Bush administration officials have suggested that terrorists may have carried plastic weapons when they took over the four jetliners by attacking the flight crews, though whether they were using anything like the brawny Stealth Hawk is unknown.
The Stealth Hawk is made from a high-tech, nonmetallic laminate known as MP45. Its 4 1/2-inch, serrated blade is so strong it can be "pounded through steel drums, car doors, wood planks, etc. without damage," according to the description in a catalog issued by Shomer-Tec, a mail-order firm in Bellingham, Wash.
The purchase and possession of the Stealth Hawk and other "undetectable" knives like it are perfectly legal in most states, including California.
No license, special permit or identification is needed to purchase one. To get a Stealth Hawk, a customer need only mail off a check for $137, plus a $7 handling fee, and Shomer-Tec will ship it via United Parcel Service.
Some people wonder why.
"There is no place in our society for a weapon like this," said Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "Shame on the person who is marketing this. He puts all of us at risk."
