ANALYSIS
Safety catch
Fears of terrorism are high on the corporate agenda, but the aviation industry is rising to meet the challenge
had a nasty surprise when entering one of the aircraft’s toilets – a loaded handgun was found lying on the wash basin. The passenger feared the worst: was this the start of a major in-flight ter- rorist incident? Fortunately not, since the crew – once alerted – discovered that the gun had ac- cidently been left in the cubicle by one of the thousands of armed US Air Marshals who fly incognito on international and US domestic flights every day, prepared to act in case of a terrorist attack.
The air marshal, a woman who report- edly had only recently joined the Trans- portation Security Administration (TSA), could have had some justification for her mistake: a survey for the TSA carried out by the Harvard Medical School revealed that more than eight out of every ten marshals on international flights suffered adversely from the effects of sleep deprivation.
Although the marshal’s mistake did not lead to any tragedy, it does act as a firm reminder to travellers of the rather worrying potential scenario of a gunfight at 30,000 feet taking place. And this is not as unlikely as flyers may imagine. Last year US airport bag checks discovered a record number of guns in passengers’ carry-on luggage – some 3,391 weapons, about nine a day, and a 28 per cent increase over 2015, according to the TSA. More to the point, some eight out of every ten guns discovered were loaded, with a significant proportion having a round ‘chambered’ or ready to fire. It is not just guns that are found: hand grenades, both imitation and real, are popular items, along with knives of all types and even gunpowder. So far this year, the numbers
are even worse: a record 96 firearms were discovered by the TSA in the last week of July, beating the previous record of 89 set earlier in the month. (The TSA releases the figures on a weekly basis.) In the latest record haul, 85 guns were loaded, with 26 having a bullet ready to fire. The TSA acknowledges that most of the guns and weapons discovered are not intentionally being smuggled through security; rather it suggests that many Americans firmly believe in their consti- tutional right to bear arms and ‘simply forget’ when packing bags that weapons are, in fact, banned. But the real issue is not the number of
guns found, but how many are likely to have slipped through the net. A recent test at Minneapolis-St Paul airport, for example, used actors to pose as passengers trying to smuggle explosives, drugs and fake weapons through security. According to media reports – the TSA declined to comment – these ‘passengers’ were suc- cessful in 94 per cent of attempts. Adding to such worrying statistics, this year has seen a ratcheting up of concerns about terrorism, be it at airports, in the air or in the middle of major cities – as the recent London and Manchester terror attacks have sharply reminded all of us.
But it was the new Trump administration which caused the biggest surprise: seem- ingly out of the blue in March it imposed a ban on laptops and other personal elec- tronic devices in the passenger cabins of commercial flights to the US from ten air- ports in the Middle East and North Africa. This changed the game completely: from there being a general, unspecified threat to air travel, laptops suddenly became a clear and specific source of danger. But putting laptops with dodgy lithium-ion batteries
– a potential fire-threat – in the hold, did not seem a sensible solution either. Although the intelligence finding behind this move was not revealed, it soon led to a general tightening up of airline security on both sides of the Atlantic, including the UK also banning laptops in the cabins on flights from certain Middle Eastern and African countries. But the US authorities, still worried that terrorists could plant explosives in a laptop and detonate it in flight, next demanded that some 280 global airports, those which are the last point of departure for flights to the US, should immediately install explosive-detection technology to check luggage. Other security measures were also imposed, focusing on enhanced screening of passengers and their luggage before boarding. The UK, in late July and early August, consequently eased its laptop ban for airports and airlines that undertook similar tough screening measures. “Make no mistake, our enemies are constantly working to find new methods
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