I flew into Tucson International today (great airport for the little guys, by the way - most of the UK's international airports could learn a lot), and as I was walking through the executive terminal, something on the tv caught my eye. It was tuned to CNN, and there was an article on how GA security would be affected.
The presenter of this article was a private pilot himself, and was talking to some official guy (can't remember exactly which one of the alphabet soup organisations he belonged to). Questions were along the line of:
Presenter: "This is the airport where I keep my airplane. The only thing that keeps the general public from the airplanes here is this 4-foot high fence. Do you think that this is sufficient?"
Official guy: "Well, to tell the truth, we could put a 20-foot electric fence with barbed wire in, and people would still be able to get to the aircraft by walking through the door. A breach of the fence was not the problem in this case."
P: "So what kind of security measures can we implement at small airports?"
OG: "The best kind of security is the 'Neigbourhood Watch' kind, which already exists at almost all small airports. Everyone knows everyone else, the guys in the tower are looking out for anything suspicious, and really there's not much more that can be done. I think everyone associated with general aviation is aware that they need to be looking for anything suspcious, and that's the best kind of security. But if someone wants to get to an airplane, they will, and there's nothing we can do to stop them"
Overall, a very good article. The reporter was obviously "one of us", and I'm not suggesting that everyone in the USA is going to take such a sensible view, but it certainly won't harm GA to have articles such as this being broadcast across the USA on a network as big as CNN.
And for a view-point from someone not connected to aviation - I was discussing this with the cab driver in Tucson, and he agreed that legislation is not the answer. We likened legislating for this kind of event with legislating that every car must be kept permanently locked in a garage to make sure that a joy-rider doesn't steal it and kill someone - it's just not possible. So overall, I think the effects on GA could have been much worse. Still, tragic that a kid should be so messed up that he'd do something like this.
FFF
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