Counter Terror Gazette

Blast Containment: holding back Hell’s dragons

14 Jun 2010

With improved passenger screening making it harder for terrorists to penetrate airside zones and infiltrate devices on board aircraft, the threat of bomb attacks against airport terminals has increased.  The high profile attack on Glasgow airport in July 2007 turned the world’s attention to this terrorist modus operandi.  Andy Oppenheimer outlines the various countermeasures to protect life and infrastructure at airports from explosive devices

Critical infrastructure protection (CIP) has become a priority in anti-terrorist countermeasures. It includes practical measures such as improving the design of buildings to make it harder for them to be blown up and, if they are, building in design features which will limit damage to life, limb and property. The threat of an improvised explosive device (IED), or multiple devices, exploding within an airport has long been factored into security arrangements.

When an IED is identified, various measures must be applied immediately to prevent it from detonating or, in the event that it does, by containing the effects of the blast, including its deafening sound, resultant fire and potentially lethal flying fragments. Also, an unresolved item detected in screening must be safely removed and, in a crowded area such as an airport terminal, would need to be contained for Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) to take place.

There have been many examples of bomb scares at airports where evacuation was necessary. Just one such incident only lasting for one to two hours can cost millions of dollars, due to the evacuation of passengers, airport staff and aircrew, the time required to deal with the suspect device, missed flights by passengers, out-of-hours aircrew and their replacement and the diversion of flights and cancellation of others.

Isolation units enable the airport to respond immediately, reducing the need to carry out procedures such as ICE – Isolate, Cordon and Evacuate – thus enabling the airport to continue operating rather than face costly, disruptive and potentially dangerous evacuations. Technologies for bomb containment are designed to protect everyone using the facility and surrounding area, as well as the buildings and assets themselves, from IED attacks.

EOD resolution is all about keeping airports open, and enabling business and traffic to continue without delays, logjams and panic. The aim is to evacuate the problem object, rather than the airport or facility…..(more online)