Has airport security worked?

[mickjoebill]

In light of tube bombings has the increase in airport security since 911 actually worked to deter such an act taking place in the air?

The perpetrators, lets say a couple of asian lads with northern accents; football fans jumping on a flight at Luton to see England play, would they have made it on board with pre 911 levels of security?



Mickjoebill

[Speedpig]

Hopefully, we'll never find out that it doesn't work.

[mickjoebill]

There has been considerable slamming of the efficency, usefullness, quality of operatives ect of airside security on this forum.

But it appears for all its faults to have worked, not withstanding it has moved the horror to other forms of transport.



Mickjoebill

[sky330]

Exactly,

It just like car theft. It is not that difficult to steal your alarm-equipped car.
But why bother, I'll take the neigbour non-equipped one, just because it is easier. not because it is impossible.....

[funkpilot]

the TSA is a joke.
Anyone with a brain could trick "screw" them at any airport any day of the week

[Kapt. Ive]

Why is this thread still here? I thought that the theme was Rumours and News, not Pathetic Questions by Racist Morons...?

[King Pong]

I thought that the theme was Rumours and News, not Pathetic Questions by Racist Morons...?

Very sad that you associate the word “Asian” as a racist word. What word can we use that you don’t find offensive? Maybe the original poster should have wrote As**n or even British with Pakistani ancestry.

[mickjoebill]

Why is this thread still here? I thought that the theme was Rumours and News, not Pathetic Questions by Racist Morons...?

I put it on this forum as it was this forum that has been critical of airport security.

I imagine the moderators will move it if it was deemed racist.

The rest of your post says more about you than the original poster.


Mickjoebill

[RMC]

MJB, re "the rest of your post"..has something been removed cos I cant see any more of the post than you quoted.

[TwoDots]

If there was ever a topic posted on this forum that could be described as "fishing for information" ... then this is it.

No information (no matter how insignificant) should be given publicly on this forum about security ...

Loose lips and all that ...

[mickjoebill]

If there was ever a topic posted on this forum that could be described as "fishing for information" ... then this is it.

The fact is the hassel that crew and passengers have endured at airport security for the past few years appears to have saved lives.

This success is worth noting! in particular here as it has been a heartfelt topic.

No fishing intended!


MJB

[7006 fan]

This does make an interesting point.
Do we need airport style security at all forms of public transport; every bus stop, train station, coach stop, underground halt the cost is incredible. Is it necessary. It could be. But is this a paranoid atttitude, surely. Surely???!!??. Is this the life that we will now have to endure forever, possibly.
Many years ago someone made the statement "...the enemy within..."?! It now appears we have '...the enemy within...' and the strike may not be through the air... but anywhere.
I still remember standing in a queue at LHR and this guy in front (British-Jewish) said "this is all because of 9/11, Tel Aviv, no problems," to which I retorted,"OK, so all British Bobbies can shoot on sight", no comment followed.
Not wishing to cause offence to anyone but the UK has gone through this before, but our memories are short. Not too long ago the IRA were blowing up the baltic Exchange, Manchester, Enniskillene, Brighton, Caterham... the list is endless, is it just we cannot identify the attacker now?
At least with Airport security all are treated the same or spontaneously, it is all random, so I understand? I have bleeped through the 'hoop' and have no metal on me at all, so...?

[Fly_Right]

The beating of drums during an eclipse brings back the Sun.

[DB6]

Kapt. Ive, your comment does nobody any favours at all. Nobody.

[SaturnV]

mickeyjoebill, prior to 9-11, the chance of them boarding four different flights and successfully blowing tnemselves up in the air would be pretty high. Even after 9-11, as Russia found out, such terrorism can succeed, particularly when screening is poor or compromised.

These days, terrorists would rate the chance of successfully hijacking a plane as extremely low, while the risk of apprehension beforehand is rather high. So they migrate to easier targets.

On a somewhat related note, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is abandoning the stay in your seat rule for flights arriving and departing Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. (The rule required passengers to stay seated for the first 30 minutes of any flight departing KDCA, and the last 30 minutes of any arriving flight . If somebody got out of their seat, then the plane could be diverted to an alternate airport. And on flights between National and LaGuardia, passengers were required to remain in their seats the entire flight.)

This rule was among the most stupid ever imposed, as passengers flying into nearby Dulles or Baltimore Washington International airports were under no similar restrictions, nor were passengers on planes overflying the area required to take their seats when the airplane was in the vicinity of Washington DC.

[boofhead]

Airport security has nothing to do with making flying safer and all to do with empire building.
Look at the screeners as they do their job; devoted to their particular point in the assembly line, they never look up or anticipate a terrorist in the line coming at them, and there is no armed response available to handle a terrorist even if they were to catch one (they have never caught one, and never will, but that is not the point of course). If there was a suicide bomber in the line and he "beeped", what would the security people do about it? With the press of other passengers, even a SWAT team would be hard pressed to deal with him, without killing everyone else in the room, even assuming the terrorist did not set off his bomb immediately. Utter stupidity and a complete waste of time. How anyone with a brain even as big as my dwarf hampster's can tolerate this farce I don't know.
More proof of the stupidity of the whole thing is the US sending F16s after Cessna 150s. What are they going to do if they catch one? Shoot it down? Imagine the collateral damage on the ground! Despite the fact that a light airplane has never been used in a terrorist attack and even if it was to be so used, it would be almost completely ineffective? All they can do is kill innocent passengers and crew, which is also their intention if an airliner gets hijacked.
The only reason flying is safer now is that we, the crews, know what we are up against and we, the crews, assisted by the cabin crew and the passengers, will prevent any future 9/11s. We do not need airport security in any form, but will accept it as it was before 9/11 (and remember there was no failure in airport security then, neither would the present airport security stop a similar attack). It took the FAA over two years to revise their "cooperate" strategy, which was a major reason that the 9/11 terrorists were successful, so don't count on anyone else's help. With F16s on each wing, everyone's hand will be against us.

[heloangel]

i know somebody who has been on jail twice and is working in baggage handling so.. i dont know how good they check on people

[West Coast]

"More proof of the stupidity of the whole thing is the US sending F16s after Cessna 150s. What are they going to do if they catch one? Shoot it down? Imagine the collateral damage on the ground! Despite the fact that a light airplane has never been used in a terrorist attack and even if it was to be so used, it would be almost completely ineffective?"

A Cessna filled with sarin wouldn't be effective? A cessna flown in to a crowd in a concert wouldn't be effective? A cessna filled with a hundred pounds of HE flown into a building wouldn't be effective? The explosives that killed all those in the double decker in London was by accounts carried in a back pack sized item. You don't have to kill thousands to be an effective terrorist, just enough to hold the attention of the public and press.

I'd rather not be around to find out if your beliefs in the stupidity of a C152 being deadly have any merit.

[faq]

More to the point of this thread perhaps:

Would a criminal records check (CRC) prevent the London murderers getting airport passes and committing acts of terrorism in or around an airport environment?

Is it correct that when a CRC is carried out on an individual, it is only for a UK criminal record?

Would I be correct in assuming that if an individual had not been resident in the UK for long, but was a UK passport holder, that a CRC can only go back as far back as the individuals length of residency in the UK?

[boofhead]

A light airplane is the last vehicle that would be used for any of those purposes mentioned, because of the lack of payload, lack of accuracy in delivering it, easy detection by the authorities and the high chance of failure. How many light airplanes have been used by terrorists? None. The only comparable case was the Cessna 172 in Florida and all that poor soul managed was to burn out one office in one building.
Lincoln said you can't fool all of the people all of the time but when it comes to "security" I guess he was wrong.

[SaturnV]

Boofhead, in September 1994, a Cessna hit the first floor of the southwest corner of the White House at about 2 AM in the morning. The pilot was killed. President and Mrs. Clinton were not in the White House at the time.

The plane skidded on the lawn, clipped a magnolia tree, before finally impacting the White House.

[West Coast]

How much of a payload do you need to kill people? You can easily put a few hundred pounds of explosives in the aircraft along with a one way pilot. If a Kamakazi in a single seat fighter could sink a ship, a light plane pilot with similiar intentions could kill many given the right target. Is a lone bomber with a backpack bomb not effective because of a lack of payload? Tell that to the grieving in London. I am heading to an open air concert later this month, a 152 flown into the crowd with or even without explosives would be devastating.

Easy detection? Early detection didn't stop a C172 from violating Soviet airspace and landing in Red Square. As Saturn points out, a Cessna impacted the White House. Does a terrorist attack need to kill a load of people? No, it need only impart a sense of unease on the population along with the media storm that follows.

[boofhead]

A truck bomb is easier to make, and easier to get into position. A suicide bomber is more likely to get closer to the target and do more damage. There are many ways to cause mayhem, and using a light airplane is probably the most unlikely. The examples given are all nutters or suicides and none hit any target with explosives or chemicals. None of the persons so far caught by the FBI for flying in a TFR has been a terrorist and I would suggest that none ever will.
If a terrorist was flying over a building in which he knew there was a person who was his target, how does he see, or identify him(her)? And how does he successfully direct his airplane to the right spot? It looks easy on TV or movies but in the real world it is something that might be considered, then rejected in favour of several, much easier, solutions.
If the intent was to just cause fear and confusion, there is really no defence against an airplane. In the hands of a trained terrorist it would be very difficult to bring him down and the collateral damage would be greater than the damage the airplane could cause. Better to prepare for the response than to waste time and effort on trying to stop it, since the attempt would be futile. Look at London, and the response there; they admitted that stopping attacks like they went through are virtually impossible. The place Londoners thought would be their refuge (the Tube) became the killing field. Look at Bahgdad, where thousands of innocents have been killed because the checkpoints are manned by trigger-happy soldiers motivated by fear for their own lives, because of a perception that everyone is against them and every vehicle has a bomb. Do we want that in the middle of the US? Where no-one is safe from our own government? If living in fear underground does not make you safe, what are you going to do? The climate of fear and terror is fueled deliberately in the US by the government and the willing media. I always thought that the British, at least, were more pragmatic and less prone to panic. Was I wrong?
There are thousands of light airplanes flying in the US every day, and none of them is a threat, at least to a ridiculously small chance. There is a far greater chance of earthquake, fire, gas leak or accident. Spending any time being afraid of a small airplane flying overhead, much less planning to shoot one down, is paranoid to the extreme. Using my tax dollars to fuel this fantasy is insulting. That it is supported by anybody at all is frightening.

[7006 fan]

What I find interesting in this thread, and generally, is the phlegmatic attitude of the Brit. Bombed, blasted, shot at not only, on the home front by the Nazi but by the IRA as well. Extreme violence was experienced by the UK up until a few years ago..
The news yesterday announced a rail crash in Pakistan in which 150+ were killed. OK, it was not an act of terrorism but it was still the death of 150 human beings with wives, hubands, family, friends all will miss them. The report was the last item in a ten minute bulletin and occupied about 10 seconds.

Sorry but all life is sacred.

[MerchantVenturer]

Over three and a half thousand people are killed on the UK's roads every year, an average of nearly ten each and every day of the year.

That is also sacred life but rarely merits any coverage at all on the news.

As has been said many times, when terrorists are prepared to die themselves in their 'cause', stopping them is all but impossible in so many situations in which they could put themselves, including airport environments.

That said, countries must never relax their grip on the process of trying to thwart such perversions. The best method is by accurate intelligence (a rather grand word for information), and all sections of our community have a potential hand to play in this.