QM2 Cruises Into Security Scrutiny

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MIAMI — Longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall and weighing in at about 150,000 tons, the Queen Mary 2 is the biggest cruise ship ever built, making its maiden voyage a massive security concern.

The trans-Atlantic trip, which began Monday in England and ends Jan. 24 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., is being made under tight security. When U.S. forces captured Al Qaeda's so-called "chief of naval operations," he was carrying a 180 page-document listing targets of opportunity -- supposedly including large Western cruise ships.

"Security and safety of our passengers and crew is and always has been and always will be our number one priority," said Michael Crye, a member of the International Council of Cruise Lines. "We have very excellent coordination cooperation and procedures in place."

But some security experts say the cruise industry still needs to fix "low-hanging fruit."

"There are so many portals, so many windows so close to the water, that I think they need to look very seriously at installing external security cameras," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.

Security officials should be "thinking very carefully about if they were intruders on the ship they would be able to quickly isolate them and prevent them from getting the run of the ship before the crew even knew they were being boarded," Pike said.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, all cruise ships coming into U.S. ports have been subjected to intense security. Lt. Cmdr. Ted Ferring, chief of Miami port operations, said ports are prepared for all ships, big and small.

"We've been ready for a long time," he said. "Prior to 9/11 the cruise line industry and Coast Guard worked very closely together to control access to the facilities that the cruise line business does in America."


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