Desperate,
Thanks for a very insightful post… really helpful.
However I’d say you are merely looking at the problem from a different perspective.
The way I have read this thread, and perhaps I am wrong…the main issue is the way that aircraft crew have to deal with inconsistent, seemingly irrelevant and intrusive security as they go legitimately from landside to airside.
The use of false uniforms and fake ID was illustrative of a simple way of side- stepping the security barrier if the presence of a uniform and an ID were sufficient to gain a different treatment at this point.
Both Brakedwell and you then took a flying leap into conjecture that the fakes would then proceed to take over an aircraft. This is only one of a number of options open to them. Others exist and may satisfy their aims just as well.
So if we look at the relevance of the entire process a legit crew goes thro from first arrival to taking an aircraft in the light of getting thro security we can see if it is relevant.
Jonny Jobsworth deals with a crew as they appear at his or her security station. He has not observed them arrive so cannot vouch from whence they have come, he possibly does not care. Nor, I wager, does he or she really care where they are going. They are part of the crowd of people who have arrived from the uncontrolled landside section of the airport…no more; no less. They will be treated in the same fashion as everyone else. So whether they have just entered the terminal from a taxi or been given the once over by a company ID check is totally irrelevant. JJ is oblivious of this….Where the crew then goes does not matter to JJ. If the crew vanishes into thin air it is not his duty know or control.
The notion that aircrew should have a separate security area, to which only air and ground crew have access means more specific checks can be made.. more about making sure the people are who they say they are and are supposed to be there, rather than checking to see if the lens fluid is explosive, the sandwich poisoned or the toothpick is dangerous. This may be achieved either by ensuring the crews arrive at this security checkpoint as the result of either passing thro company spaces, access to which is gained only by company ID checks, or by another access controlled landside section, where IDs can be checked against user company databases.
So whilst I would agree that the chances of using fake crew; with fake IDs to gain control of an aircraft is remote (although it exists) this was not the issue. The issue is the use of fake ID and uniforms to get thro security.
Aside from this you may wish to devote your considerable knowledge and intelligence to another issue…..even if only for a few seconds.
Airports are buildings. They are designed by people. Those people need to learn, understand and know how these buildings work, how these ‘people machines’ function. In order to do so the designers need to be able to define the routes people take thro the airport as they use it as passengers, as landside staff, as airside users, as users of both sides, as cleaners, as security staff, as maintenance men and as even as aircrew. Those designers need to know what the sequence of events and spaces is that these users need at every stage of their use of the building. They need to know what those spaces are, what they are used for, how big, how many doors and windows they need. They need to know who can go thro that door, this door, where those users are going and what they are doing.
In order to gain this knowledge and understanding those designers spend a lot of time experiencing these for themselves, in existing airports and in working with the people who use them, who run them. And here’s the really interesting bit…a large percentage of those designers are architects.
So, if I can ask you to make another of your mental leaps…there is a possibility that as an architect, my knowledge of how and airport works is extensive and detailed; that my knowledge of how the people, both SLF and professional users go thro an airport may be equally extensive and detailed. And shock horror I may even know how the security of an airport works.
To add to the unimaginable I may know in detail the route a crew needs to take from the moment they arrive at the airport until they close the door of the plane they are rostered to…I may know what the sequence of spaces they need to use is before venturing across the security barrier and beyond to their rostered craft. I may, perish the thought, know exactly which doors; both airside and landside; are on an access control system… and on which systems… I might even know what that system is... and what makes it work... let alone what the ID is that activates it…and oh the humanity, where to get the machine that makes the ID card that activates the door that allows access to the inner sanctums of the airport. I might even have discussed this with an airport operator and an airline rep…or better yet taken specialist advice on the matter so that my proposed designs work or even have as a member of the architectural team a designer who has worked these systems first hand as a security agent for a major airline renowned of its security profile.
I’m glad that you pointed out that I do not have the faintest idea of what I am talking about. It reassures me that you experience this first hand every time you use certain airports both here and overseas. It makes me realise that if all it takes is ignorance, then truly, it is the way forward.
I tell you what Desperate…lets make a deal; I’ll come and tell you how to fly an airplane a large complex multi-engined passenger jet say... based only on several thousand flights as a passenger and a handful of hours in a light plane and fast jets (I'm assuming here you are a pilot).. And then you can come and tell me how to design an airport because you use one often as a pilot…Sound good to you?