mfaff
Your earlier posting floated the fanciful notion of an entirely bogus crew – flight deck and cabin crew - somehow appearing in the correct security channel at the correct time with the intention (by extension) of boarding the aircraft.
Quote:
a couple of flight crew and two or three flight attendants.. trying it on as a say a 146 crew...
Not too much problem there...
As for ID.. a simple robbery would give me all the originals I needed.. a good forgery set up would allow me to make all the fake IDs required. Again not a mountain to climb in view of what is wanted.(Unquote)
Realizing that perhaps you’d previously strayed a bit too far, you altered your second scenario to simply getting this entire crew airside to ‘achieve their aims.’ Goalposts are moving but it matters not.
As I said originally, it’s not just a case of getting past security, or up the steps and turning the key as you would a Mondeo. Or in your case a Porsche; the 911 irony duly noted.
You then gave us a lengthy treatise on airport design, ‘functional spaces’, staff routes and access requirements. We progressed from door sizes to ID machines, with increasing heartbeat. Then your carefully worded crescendo suggested to the world that you, Michel, were the airport security expert bar none.
It left me wondering which UK airport terminals you, personally, had any involvement with. Granted you have extensive knowledge in the ‘building trade’ (OK, you’re an architect) and have worked for some decent firms. So far, my search has taken me to the American Air Museum in Duxford but now I’m stuck. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s a fine building with plenty of ‘functional space’ and you’ve every right to be proud of your involvement. I’m sure NF feels the same way. I’d be mildly interested to hear more of your extensive personal aviation security experience, though.
But where is this taking us? As other pilots have said, it’s not the building design we’re criticizing. Indeed, I have a dedicated crew-search point at my home base and would like to see these nationwide - maybe Hamiltons could tender. But that’s not the point. It almost doesn’t matter if my bags are checked or not because, as we know, those doing the checking are sometimes not as alert as they could be. Ignore for the time being that most UK ID cards are time-sensitive, zone sensitive and pin enabled. None of this is sensitive information, by the way.
Here’s the point: once airside, there’s precious little a crew of six can do that isn’t being monitored. Not just by CCTV, but the greatest asset we have – the human intuition of others. First it will be the crew bus driver, asking certain details. And again, you can ignore the presence of other staff. I will omit two sensitive matters that will also ‘get you’.
You are going to face the same human-interface problem with the dispatcher, the engineer, the refueller, the cleaners, the caterer, the push-back crew and probably air traffic. The genuine crew might also be just a little miffed that you’re taking their flight (but don’t count on that!). If you wonder why the caterers, cleaners or any of the others would notice it’s because their lives and ours are based largely on daily repetition. Even the right phrase, at the wrong time, stands out. That’s the great thing about human instinct – we know when something’s not right and have lateral-thinking ability that (your?) card readers don't. Even money on whether the dispatcher or the engineer would make the first call to Ops. Or the original crew. Either way it really is a non-starter.
So what if they have ‘other intentions’? It’s my considered belief that they’d be spotted once airside, especially if they didn’t go to an aircraft. BAA staff are especially hot on certain matters and six crew wandering aimlessly about would ‘show-out’ straight away. ATC, ground staff, security, Mr Plod, tug drivers, baggage handlers, caterers. All have a part to play, and thank God they do.
There are a number of other airside ‘gotchas’ in place which fortunately don’t involve the airport security searchers, which I won’t divulge on an open forum.
You seem on balance to make some reasoned arguments and we probably have similar interests. Aircrew are not suggesting that they should be exempt from all restrictions, as any reasoned observer of these 1000+ posts would gather. It’s just the lack of logic, application and consistency that gets us. Above all else, it’s the belief by those who have nothing to do with aviation that they really do know better because they've watched an episode of 'Airport'.
In fact, Choclit Runway’s post above really does sum it up. Believe me, ATCOs have far greater work-related stress than pilots (usually) and they're one other group who should not go to work wound up.