Terrorism aimed at airlines like the
EgyptAir crash illustrates the "real threat" is from "people behind the scenes" who don't get the same scrutiny as the traveling public, New York GOP Rep. Peter King said Sunday.
In an interview on CNN's
"State of the Union," a Homeland Security Committee member and chair of the sub-committee on counterterrorism and intelligence said the United States has been more effective at vetting airport workers.
"It's people behind the scenes, those who have access to the plane, the airport workers, the cleaners, the scrubbers, anyone who gets, who again does not face the same scrutiny as passengers do," King said. "They have access and that is a real threat here."
Noting the move months ago at Charles de Gaulle airport in France to remove airport workers suspected to have ties to radical Islamic jihadists, King said the effort may have been too little too late.
"That behind the scenes insider threat is one we have to be most concerned about, we're doing a better job," he said. "France was a little late getting started and as far as other countries around the world, they come nowhere near the standards we have here" in the United States.
King said the unofficial indicators of the Egypt airlines crash last week point to terrorism, but "it also could be a malfunction on the plane itself, an electrical malfunction."
"I think as more and more of the debris is collected and testing is done we should find out sooner rather than later what this was," he said. "We always have to start off with the premise that terrorism is the most likely option and work our way back from that…"