three months after the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers, ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid failed in his mid-air attempt to bring down American Airlines flight AA63 from Paris to Miami by detonating explosives hidden in his shoes. This helped drive a major international push to develop more effective X-ray scanning and other screening capabilities.
Momentum for a technological solution
was accelerated after the 2006 ‘liquid bombs’ threat (see panel below) and the Christmas Day 2009 failed-bid to blast a hole in an aircraft from Schiphol to Detroit using explosives hidden in the underwear of a radicalised Nigerian.
But despite the substantial amounts spent on developing these technologies, there have been mixed results. While X-ray scanning of baggage has probably been the most successful in a technical sense, its weakness – as shown by the Frankfurt investigation – is that it is vulnerable to operator failings. And advanced imaging technology – or body-scanning – has proved controversial, partly because of privacy concerns, but also due to persistent claims that the scanners are not fully effective and can potentially be circumvented by a determined terrorist.
Despite the substantial amounts spent on developing these technologies, there have been mixed results
Technology aside, there is another glaring weakness in airport security: the relatively lax checks on airport workers. This was sharply brought home to Americans last December by the arrest and charge of a man who had been smuggling guns (more than 150 on 17 Delta flights over several months) through Atlanta airport to New York, aided by an airport baggage handler working on the inside. In this case it was criminal gun-running
rather than terrorism, but it has served as a wake-up call and political pressure is growing in the US to beef up ‘back-stage’ security. The drawback, as ever, is the issue
of costs and funding, which inevitably will add to pressure on airport charges and fares.
SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS Yet the ‘next generation’ technology on the way is taking a different approach. This deploys computer-based surveillance systems, including facial scanning, biometrics and video analysis to detect suspicious behaviour, such as terrorists ‘casing’ airport security. The aim is to find the individual behind the threat rather than simply search for the weapon. “New scanning technology can certainly make a difference, but sophisticated use of intelligence will always be critical in keeping flights safe by countering terrorist attacks,” notes Wings Travel Management chief operating officer Paul East. Perhaps
the ultimate example of
combining technology with on-the-ground intelligence is Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, which utilises latest scanning technology along with both overt and undercover ‘eyeball observation’ of passenger behaviour. And it’s worked so far: while the airport has been the target of several terrorist attacks, to date, no attempt to hijack a plane departing from Ben Gurion has succeeded.
ON 9 AUGUST, 2006, HEATHROW AND THE REST of the world’s airports were thrown into chaos by the arrest of two dozen men in London on suspicion of a plot to blow up ten north American-bound aircraft with a new type of ‘liquid bomb’ assembled and detonated on suicide missions while the planes were over the north Atlantic. As a result, billions of global airline passengers have been inconvenienced for nearly a decade by the rules on how liquids, aerosols and gels (LAGs in security speak) can be carried on board an aircraft.
Although the strategy worked, since there have been no commercial aircraft
26 BBT MARCH/APRIL 2015
brought down by liquid bombs (although the cause of Malaysia Airlines MH370’s disappearance remains unknown), it remains a real threat in spite of scepticism is some quarters. According to former TSA head John Pistole, speaking shortly before his retirement last December: “One classified briefing on what the actual threats are would, hopefully, convince the doubters these threats are real and the stakes are high.” While there has been significant progress in developing technologies to identify potential liquid bombs, the problem is how to do this reliably and without creating additional delays going
through security channels. A number of detection systems are in use around the world, including a scanner from Oxfordshire-based Cobalt Light Systems, which is being trialled by Heathrow and Gatwick along with 63 other airports around the world. The EC has been keen to find a resolution to the liquids problem and, early last year, allowed bottles of alcohol or perfume larger than 100ml to be bought from airport duty-free shops and carried in special bags (known as security tamper evident bags, or STEBs) through security screening by transfer passengers changing flights. European airports are now mandated to
use new electronic screening technology on liquids carried in these bags, which must not be tampered with or opened before the traveller’s final destination is reached. If this scheme proves successful (it is still being evaluated) it may be extended to other liquids, although this would need further EC legislative amendments – making the EC’s goal of allowing all liquids to be screened and carried this way by next January rather optimistic. The US is also thought not to be keen to rush into a significant relaxation of the curbs on LAGs. “That’s a long-term goal, not in the near future,” according to Pistole.
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