One year and one day after the worst breach of security in aviation history, Philip Baum travelled to Washington to meet the United States Secretary of Transportation, Norman Y. Mineta. In this exclusive interview, Mineta recalls 911 from a personal perspective then expounds on some of the significant achievements of the past year in respect of aviation security in the United States.

From an aviation security perspective, mention Athens and one cannot fail to be reminded of some of the high profile attacks in our brief history. The Greek authorities have quite naturally, been keen to put such incidents behind them and, sporting a brand new airport and with the city set to host the next Olympic Games in 2004, security is now equal to many of the best. Philip Baum flew in to report on the airport's odyssey from security pariah to security torch.

On 26 January 1972, a Jat DC-9 en route from Copenhagen to Zagreb and Belgrade exploded 33,000 feet over Srbska-Kamenice in Czechoslovakia. Ustashe, otherwise known as the Croatian National Movement, later admitted their responsibility for the bombing that should have killed all 29 passengers and crew. Miraculously, however, there was a survivor. he body of a flight attendant, Vesna Vulovic, was recovered from the wreckage. Thirty years on, Philip Baum travelled to Belgrade to hear her story.

September 11th has called into question our strategies for confronting terrorism both in the global area of international politics and in the day-to-day preventative measures that are employed to protect civilians in their workplace, at their leisure venues and as they travel. The aviation security industry is being overhauled and many new technologies are surfacing to counter the threat. Philip Baum highlights some of the technologies, which six months ago were thought to belong to the distant future, and which are now already being tried and tested in airports around the globe.

A five-hour flight from America's mainland lies the island state of Hawaii. The name conjures up images of surfboards, tropical beaches, floral shirts, volcanic eruptions, hula girls and Polynesian culture. The world of international terrorism, despite Hawaii Five-O, seems an anathema but, as Philip Baum discovered, the authorities responsible for security at Honolulu International Airport take the threat to security very seriously indeed.

Had the industry ever contemplated the possibility of hijackers intentionally killing themselves as part of their action plan? It is a question that has been asked of the aviation security fraternity by the world's media time and time again in recent weeks. Whilst the scale of the September 11th attacks shocked us all, Philip Baum reports that this was not the first time that hijackers had selected aviation as a journey to the grave.

Eleven months after Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was hijacked Philip Baum visited them in New Delhi and Hyderabad to hear their tale.

A few eyes were raised when, at AVSEC World 2000, the organisation award for outstanding contribution to aviation security went to Aerodrom Ljubljana. Less than a decade ago the airport was simply one of the former Yugoslavia's provincial terminals. Now as Slovenia's capital gateway, it is not only a highly modernised example of small airport efficiency, but it is also playing the role of regional adviser on security matters to other airports authorities emerging from civil war. Philip Baum visited Ljubljana to see why it deserved such acclaim.

At first glance it would appear that Rinas Airport, Tirana takes security to the extreme. Scattered all over the airfield are some of the 300,000 bunkers that litter the Albanian countryside, remnants of Enver Hoxha's paranoia of invasion. Yet the Albania of 2001 is a very different country, keen to end years of international isolation and prepared to invest in developing its aviation security programme. Philip Baum reports.

On 5th September 2000, the day preceding the 30th anniversary of the commencement of the Dawson's Field hijacks, Philip Baum met with Leila Khaled at the SAS Radisson Hotel in Amman, Jordan. What follows is an edited version of Leila's own story - the story of a hijacker...