Counter Terror Gazette

80 Years of Avsec: from Arequipa to Domodedovo

21st February 2011 marks the 80th anniversary of the first recorded hijacking and the birth of aviation security. On the same day in 1931, in Peru, Captain Byron Rickards flew his Ford Tri-Motor aircraft from Lima to Arequipa only to be greeted on landing by armed revolutionaries wanting the aircraft to distribute propaganda leaflets over the region. Rickards refused to fly anywhere, was held captive for 10 days and was only released when he agreed to fly one of the revolutionaries back to Lima. Rickards also had the misfortune to be the first Captain to be hijacked twice – on 3 August 1961, a father and son team entered the cockpit of his Continental Airlines flight preparing to depart from El Paso and demanded to be taken to Cuba. The FBI shot out the aircraft’s tyres and the hijackers surrendered.

Rickards experiences were on the ground, but many incidents were aerial. The desire to divert aircraft to Cuba became an increasingly common occurrence in the 1960’s, a decade in which the world recorded 364 hijackings. And, by 1968, the Arab-Israeli conflict was making the headlines around the globe as Palestinian groups, in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, realised the potential for statehood was becoming an increasingly distant dream and took their cause to the skies over Europe. The Checkpoint of the Past was born…

GIANTS IN SCREENING – Special Report

The primary method of ensuring that aircraft, and those who fly in them, are free of hijackers and those who, either wittingly or unwittingly, may be about to commit an act of sabotage is the processing of passengers, crew, baggage and cargo through security checkpoints. State-of-the-art technologies, complemented by trained, motivated individuals are the keys to our success in preventing the next atrocity in the skies. Some of the world’s most well known brands in the aviation security industry are associated with the screening checkpoint and their scientists are the brains behind the research and development of technologies that have either proven their effectiveness or show considerable promise of improving our detection capability in the future. Many of the more advanced solutions are hard to comprehend unless one is a physicist or chemist, so Amir Neeman has taken up the challenge to explain the science behind solutions being proffered by those companies who are the Giants in Screening…

Aviation Security: time for a re-think?

9/11 was something of a watershed in the lifecycle of aviation security. Much has happened since then to improve our understanding of the threat and our ability to counter it, but aviation security has also, perversely, become the object of criticism – mostly contradictory. It is too expensive, too intrusive, too knee-jerk (or too slow to respond). There is too much of it (or too little). It is all too predictable (or too inconsistent.) So almost ten years on, it is time to ask ourselves – if aviation security is not where we would like it to be, what needs to be done? Niki Tompkinson, following an eight year stint heading up Britain’s transport security regulatory agency, expresses her opinion.

On the positive side, we should remind ourselves just how much progress has been made in a relatively short space of time. Unlike safety, which has evolved steadily over a long period, security has been forced to respond rapidly to the sharp rise in the threat. Hardly a month goes by without some sort of event, most recently the landside attack at Moscow airport, demonstrating the degree of determination and capability of those for whom aviation is a prime target. Pre-9/11, some countries (like the UK), had a good record of security, with measures mandated by Government. But many others had few or no measures in place. International standards, where they existed, set the bar low; compliance was not compulsory and implementation patchy.

Of Politics, Profiles and Passengers: our confusion over civil aviation security

The recent furore over full-body scanning and its ancillary counterpart, the “invasive” pat-down, are but the latest issues in the ever-entertaining world of civil aviation security. Virtually every innovation involving screening of passengers and their baggage over the past forty years has involved a similar uproar and protestations of diminishing civil liberties. These most recent events are no exception. First to inveigh against such intrusions are the politicians.

Representative John Mica (R-FL), a major critic of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), has opined that “When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees…It’s a big Kabuki dance.” This becomes somewhat disingenuous when you consider that Mica was one of the original authors of the bill that created the “unwieldy bureaucracy” ten years ago.

Security Management Systems:making the whole greater than the sum of its parts

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has recommended for several years that security management systems should be included in ICAO’s Annex 17. Airlines recognise the significant benefits to be gained and many have already implemented security management systems (SeMS) in their organisations. IATA believes that regulatory recognition of SeMS is long overdue, and in the long term, all industry stakeholders, including airlines, airports and state authorities could reap significant rewards, both operationally and financially. Günther Matschnigg describes how security management systems lay the foundation for performance based regulation and why it’s time to include the principles of SeMS in Annex 17.

Stowaways: passage in a wheel well

There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of stowaway incidents since the beginning of commercial and cargo aviation. The fact that stowaways continue to successfully hide in aircraft without detection raises real security concerns for airlines, airports, governments and the public alike. The problem, as James Careless reports, is that stowaways represent a topic that few people want to talk about, let alone take clear and overt steps against.

The most recent incident occurred on 15 November 2010, when the battered body of 16-year-old Delvonte Tisdale was found outdoors in the quiet Boston suburb of Milton, Massachusetts. Police initially believed that Tisdale had been murdered there. However, further investigation revealed that Tisdale had stowed aboard a US Airways 737 departing from Charlotte Douglas International Airport, North Carolina, some 700 miles away. The evidence supporting the stowaway theory included the fact that Tisdale’s body and clothing were found under the flight path where the 737′s wheels were lowered, plus a handprint was found inside the 737′s left rear wheel well that apparently belonged to the victim.

Terror in the Skies: the impact on tourism on the ground

‘There is a growing perception of the world as a more risky place to live and travel (Fischoff, Nightingale and Ianotta 2001) and this perception could have serious implications for tourism.’ (Reisinger and Mavondo 2005)

Tourism is always susceptible to terrorism (as well as other threats such as disease, wars, civil unrest etc.) It can strike anywhere and at any time, indiscriminately. Tourists either change their travel plans, especially with regard to the mode of transport or the destination or may not travel at all if they perceive the threat of terrorism on their planned trip. The results of a questionnaire (by Alsarayreh, Jawabreh and Helalat 2010) about how tourists make their travel decisions indicated that terrorism, as well as political conflicts and political instability, have a strong negative influence on the destination selection and tourism activities. The threat of terrorism is consequently an important consideration for policy and it is in the public interest of countries to protect themselves and their tourism industries as a change in the types of tourists and the fluctuations in numbers could represent a substantial economic danger. Dirk Reiser evaluates the impact of terrorism on the tourism industry and provides an insight into the way in which Australia, in particular, has responded to the threat.