Sharm el-Sheikh airport officials reveal porous security

CAIRO (AP) — The airport at Egypt's resort of Sharm el-Sheikh has long had gaps in security, including a key baggage scanning device that often is not functioning and lax searches at an entry gate for food and fuel for the planes, security officials at the airport told The Associated Press.

Security at the airport, and others around Egypt, have become a central concern as investigators probe the Oct. 31 crash of a Russian plane 23 minutes after it left Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 on board.

A spokesman for Egypt's Aviation Ministry, Mohamed Rahma, dismissed the accounts of inadequate security, saying "Sharm el-Sheikh is one of the safest airports in the world," without elaborating.

Ireland has also suspended flights to the Red Sea resort, while at least a half-dozen Western European governments told their citizens not to travel there.

Egyptian authorities at Sharm el-Sheikh airport have begun questioning airport staff and ground crew who worked on the Russian flight and have placed some employees under surveillance, according to airport and security officials.

A retired senior official from Egypt's Tourism Ministry, Magdy Salim, said airport guards regularly skip security checks for friends and co-workers and often don't search people "out of respect to save their time if they look chic or if they come out of a fancy car."

"All scenarios are being considered ... it could be lithium batteries in the luggage of one of the passengers, it could be an explosion in the fuel tank, it could be fatigue in the body of the aircraft, it could be the explosion of something," he told reporters at Cairo press conference.