Counter Terror Gazette

Airport Coasts: securing airfields from maritime and underwater threats

02 Oct 2011

With many new airports being built on man-made islands, and others being constructed in coastal locations, Kenneth Davey, drawing upon Hong Kong International Airport as a case study, examines what steps airports can take to secure their sterile zones from intrusion by those who take to the waves or plan an underwater incursion attempt. Whilst, to date, no airport has been attacked from the sea, looking at how terror tactics have developed over the last decade, the possibility of a stand-off missile attack or a suicide attack from the sea must be a real possibility.

The first time I flew into the Maldives in 1979, my first impression of Hulhulé airport was ‘where is it?’ Like so much of the atoll-based country, it was built on land reclaimed from the lagoon around one of the islands close to the capital, Malé, and was not really evident from the approach by air.

My second impression was ‘where is the security?’ At that point in my life, I had only been a police officer for three years, but events such as the Japanese Red Army attack on Lod airport in 1972 and the Black September attack on Athens airport in 1973, had already made me aware of the vulnerability of airports to the increasing wave of terrorism aimed at air travel.

What struck me then, a few years before the civil war in nearby Sri Lanka had exploded, but well after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had come to public notice, was the nonchalant air of the officials. Even the arrivals and departures hall could be avoided by walking around the side of the building, as our guide demonstrated simply to beat the queue. All with the sea lapping a few metres from the edge of the tarmac, and small boats lingering in the surf off the sea wall.

Years later I had the opportunity to attend a policing course with two senior officers from the Maldivian police force and I learned that the upgraded Ibrahim Nasir International Airport had taken a more robust approach to segregating its air and land side as well as better protecting its sea boundary. Attacks on Rome and Vienna airports in 1985, as well as an LTTE attack at Colombo on an aircraft headed for the Maldives, no doubt had brought home the threat to this idyllic island paradise.

However, my 1979 honeymoon did get me thinking about the vulnerability of my own home town airport, Hong Kong’s Kai Tak International, also partly built on reclaimed land. In those days the (then) Royal Hong Kong Police (RHKP) was responsible for providing all security apart from baggage and passenger screening and this included landward and seaward patrols, regularly tested by the RHKP’s counter-terrorist unit, the Special Duty Unit (SDU).

What was clear from those tests was that security of any vulnerable asset with a sea boundary is extremely difficult to assure if due cognisance to the threat had not been given and the defences had not been planned in advance of construction. Security of Kai Tak was very much down to the commitment and ingenuity of human factors, especially the RHKP, rather than holistically designed security.

Years later, Hong Kong found itself building a new airport on a massive 9 km² reclamation project adjacent to two existing islands, creating a single 12.5 km² island off the western coast of Lantau in the Pearl River estuary; presenting the opportunity to take a holistic security design approach.

One major difference between Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) and the old Kai Tak airport is sovereignty. Prior to 1997, Hong Kong had been a British colony and, while the RHKP was a domestic and para-military force wholly responsible for Hong Kong’s internal security and counter terrorism, it enjoyed the backing and physical support of the UK’s armed forces, including naval assets. After 1997, Hong Kong retained responsibility for its own policing and security as a Special Administrative Region of China, with the Chinese armed forces stationed there for national defence but without any role in local security.

A second difference is in responsibility for the day-to-day landward security of the airport perimeter being assigned to a security firm, the Aviation Security Company (AVSECO), owned jointly by the Hong Kong Government and the Hong Kong Airport Authority (HKAA). The police role diminished to a degree, providing only constabulary duties and counter-terrorist response, as well as seaward security.

A few years after completion of the new airport, I found myself in command of the maritime policing of the waters around HKIA and, later still, seconded to AVSECO. My earlier experience in testing security at Kai Tak and in providing security at HKIA, provided a unique insight into protecting airport coasts and I recognised that there are three areas to be considered: ground defences, technological support and human resources.

Maritime Exclusion Zones

Perhaps the most obvious of the ground considerations to consider is a maritime exclusion zone that needs to be backed up by specific powers that provide for the interception and confiscation of violating vessels, and use of deadly force if necessary, if these do not already exist in local legislation. Whether the enforcement of the exclusion zone is by the national navy, coastguard or maritime law enforcement agency, the zone should be legally established for better enforcement and prosecution purposes’ This would provide the agency with a range of response options to deal with anything from a full terrorist attack to inadvertent incursions by pleasure vessels. Legality of the zone and appropriate powers for the enforcement agency are essential and need to take into account the fact that, hopefully, one hundred percent of the time the enforcement will be against relatively innocent breaches.

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