Originally Posted by Loose Cannon

After airport security checkpoints were implemented by the Nixon Administration I was able to avoid having to go through those checkpoints when originating from LAX on AA as my father was a captain on the Boeing 707 (later DC-10) with AA. My father would drive us to LAX and park us at the AA employee parking lot and then we would take the employee tram from the parking lot to Operations and we would enter the secure area through Operations. This happened throughout the balance of the 1970s to the early 1980s. As my father was an employee with AA we flew NRSA which means it was not certain if we would get on the flight we wanted, though most of the time we did. We would often check our luggage at the gate.

That possibility came to an end in the late 1980s due to a tragedy when a disgruntled former employee of PSA (soon to be merged with USAir) somehow was able to keep his credentials and used those credentials to bypass security and was able to carry a firearm on board and he shot his former boss and then shot the pilots causing the plane bound from LAX to SFO to crash in northern San Luis Obispo County with the loss of all 43 people on board. In my opinion PSA was remiss for not taking the credentials of the employee when he was terminated.