Terror incident at Glasgow Airport

[Halfwayback]

Of course. the fact that the subsequent counter measure will be directed at the previous method of attack seems to be largely lost on the security advisors.

Of course it has to be reactive! You would be the first to condemn a repeat, mirror attack.

If you already know what, or where, the next attack will be perhaps you could enlighten us lesser-mortals.

HWB

[callyoushortly]

Pretty serious knock on effect in EDI with diverted flights. Airport road at a standstill. No public vehicle access within about 1/4 mile of the terminal building. Police doing a good job under difficult circumstances.

Not strictly true......
3 diverted flights is hardly serious knock on.

Airport road was at a standstill, but mainly due to the Tiesto trance/hardcore gig next door at the Royal Highland showground. 10,000 expected there...... most people walking the roads around EDI were heading there, not to the airport which is notoriously quiet on a Saturday afternoon/evening.

[slip and turn]

Note: This post contains a small bit of news but feel free to relegate it to JetBlast if there's not enough to keep it here!

First, in the interest of promoting broader understanding, I've just been striving to interpret RMC's complaint ...

Gash is a slang term in English. It is normally used, chiefly in Scotland, to refer to the inane, stupid or rubbish (per wikiP) ... didn't know that one ... I can now see that making a gash gash in perimeter security to let the passengers out might have been a tad gash in more ways than one.

When RMC writes "all the unconscious incompetents we fly with", did he mean SLF?

TV news this morning shows there's possibly a full half mile queue of shuffling *+/-UC/SLF waiting patiently to get into Glasgow airport right now, 20 hours after yesterday's attack. Stalwarts the lot of them! However, I can't help thinking, perhaps gashly, that the now exposed queue reminds me of unprotected queues in Iraq - it's just another kind of secondary target, but hopefully one that doesn't become a regular feature of heightened airport terminal security.

I am sure we do all appreciate it is a messy problem for the principal authorities to have to deal with.

*+/- = more or less

[No_Speed_Restriction]

Whats the point of profiling now, after the incident. clueless.

[The Otter's Pocket]

Although I am one of the most highly qualified people in the UK aviation industry

- RMC get a life and grow up, all you have managed to spout is drivel - I am sure that if Sky TV need an "Aviation Expert" I will put your name forward...

[Basil]

Although I am one of the most highly qualified people in the UK aviation industry

We'll try to bear that in mind.

Wonder if these people London & GLA were trying to initiate a fuel air (thermobaric) explosion. Thankfully, and obviously, it's more difficult to achieve than their attempt suggests they thought.

[Two's in]

If you already know what, or where, the next attack will be perhaps you could enlighten us lesser-mortals.
HWB

HWB, My point is simply that vehicle cordons are a technology and technique that have been effective for at least 30 years, and yes, I would have put a small wager on vehicles being used as a delivery method for the current terror attacks a long time ago. Despite the daily carnage in Iraq, 25 years of the PIRA attacks, and events in the Middle East for many years, BAA, the Police and the Home Office have now been surprised that Airports are vulnerable to this type of attack.

Prevention requires a few hundred tons of Concrete, a few miles of razor wire, diligent and well trained personnel controlling the limited access points and the moral fibre to pi$$ off a large precentage of air travellers on a daily basis while neutralising the threat. It is because nobody seems prepared to accept that the last factor will have a serious financial impact on Airlines and the supporting infrastructure that it hasn't been done. I prefer that explanation, than to think that this type of attack was never considered by the security services.

El Al are unlikely to reveal what the cost of effective anti-terror measures are, but you can be sure that they are considered to be a "cost of doing business". If the authorities weren't quite so infatuated with the profit and tax to be made on a Litre of Gin, they might instead have invested some money on preventitive security advice and measures. Because they haven't, the media today is publishing the shock and outrage coverage of a wholly preventable and predictable attack.

Employing security advisors to prevent the same thing happening again is simply not good enough (be it the Government or BAA). There are resources available to apply intelligent forward-thinking counter measures that will at a bare minimum, make the perpatrators of these events struggle to come up with an executable plan, and at best prevent it completely. The MO of these current attacks is far from highly-polished and well planned, and that is the level of opportunistic targetting that is the easiest to defeat with some very basic counter measures.

While we still consider the inconvenience of making people walk 500 metres (you could run a shuttle bus of course) to be higher than the risk of a car bomb, we will continue to be vulnerable. And to answer your question, yes, sadly I can already conceive how these people can improve on their performance, I just hope that those whose job it is to predict and prevent this, can too. While we refuse to accept that we do need to change our lifestyles to counter these attacks (because then the terrorists have "won" you see) we will continue to be vulnerable. Fortress Britain may be an inconvenient and frustrating place to live, but not as inconvenient and frustrating as providing DNA samples to identify your loved ones after these people have been more successful.

Don't confuse Terror with Deterrence - you can easily learn to live with one, but not the other.

[PaperTiger]

While we still consider the inconvenience of making people walk 500 metres (you could run a shuttle bus of course) to be higher than the risk of a car bomb, we will continue to be vulnerable.

Relocating the dropoff/pickup area simply relocates the target.

[Two's in]

Agree, but to outside the cleared, concentrated target area.

[Nov71]

MAN have banned private vehicles dropping off?/pick up at terminals for several months. You have to pay ŁŁ to enter/leave the car park then the pax have to use the terminal shuttle bus. I don't know if this was a suggested security measure but it certainly has increased car park revenue

[PaperTiger]

Agree, but to outside the cleared, concentrated target area.

Which would be little consolation to the people blown up.

[Dysonsphere]

Wonder if these people London & GLA were trying to initiate a fuel air (thermobaric) explosion. Thankfully, and obviously, it's more difficult to achieve than their attempt suggests they thought.

Its possible but its neeeds a very quick spread of the fuel followed by a carefully timed firing.

[speedbird_481_papa]

Latest statement from the BAA Glasgow page:

Situation at Glasgow Airport
The main terminal at Glasgow Airport has now re-opened following an extensive clean-up operation, less than 24 hours after the airport was attacked.
All 39 check-in desks are now fully operational. Passengers are now being processed in Terminal 1 and T2, and all 64 airport check-in desks are functioning.
Anyone uncertain about the status of their flight should not travel to the airport. Similarly, friends and relatives are advised not to travel to the airport, unless absolutely necessary.
For further information please click here

So it looks like it is business as usual again now. However, I work at EGGD/BRS and just come back from the airport and there are huge concrete bollards at the enterances to the terminals to prevent vhiecular access in a simmillar way that happened at Glasgow and the forecourt is completley closed and even staff may be subject to a random car search, as I was earlier today

Regards

Gareth

[anotherthing]

HalfwayBack and twos in

You are both correct... In many circumstances security measures will be reactive.... We would be very silly if we did not try to learn from past incidents. We have armed forces who are recognised as being the best in urban (street to street) warfare. This evolved mainly because of the troubles in NI.

However, rest assured that the security forces et al will not just rely on reactive measures... they have and will continue to develop strategies on perceived or possible threats.... however, they will never be specific about such measures in the public forum for obvious reasons!

[stagger]

Wonder if these people London & GLA were trying to initiate a fuel air (thermobaric) explosion. Thankfully, and obviously, it's more difficult to achieve than their attempt suggests they thought.

It seems possible that the people responsible for the current attacks had similar ideas to Dhiren Barot who was jailed for 40 years recently…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6123236.stm

Thankfully, it seems they are also no more intelligent than Barot who was jailed for planning a number of attacks. His written plans (released after the trial with some parts redacted) were mostly incoherent and crazy. He did have some ideas about initiating a fuel air (thermobaric) explosion but they consisted of…

Using stretch limos to be inconspicuous.
Loading them with gas cylinders.
Putting barbeque charcoal under the cylinders, soaked in petrol
AND smearing the cylinders with napalm.
AND scattering some fireworks in the car.
AND lighting the charcoal to heat the cylinders to make them explode.
AND letting the gas out slowly to fill the area (it wasn't clear whether he wanted to try this after lighting the charcoal, or wanted to try to light the charcoal under the now empty cylinders in a gas-filled area before making his escape)
AND blowing up the cylinders with conventional explosives
AND hanging around with a rifle to shoot them in case none of this works
AND making his escape after shooting them and triggering the explosion
AND painting the cylinders yellow so people will think they might be something biological/toxic

He couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether he wanted to let the gas out an initiate a fuel air (thermobaric) explosion or instead just blow the cylinders up. His detailed plans really just amounted to some ideas about sticking lots of things that he could think of that might burn or explode in the back of a limo.

[The Otter's Pocket]

These bombs that you are all talking about are almost impossible to make and detonate correctly. Fortunately the enemy within don't know this.

However the controlling forces in the UK do and these people are more dangerous to our...as GB put it "our British way of life".

All they have been able to do is create a car fire, no larger than in Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow on a saturday night.

This is all food for politicians.

[Carnage Matey!]

All they have been able to do is create a car fire, no larger than in Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow on a saturday night.

And you believe the fact that they wanted to create carnage but weren't actually able to do so means it's all OK then?

[Airbubba]

Maybe Prague is on the hit list as well:

...As ABCNews.com reported, U.S. law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of terror attacks in Glasgow and Prague, the Czech Republic, against "airport infrastructure and aircraft."

The warnings apparently never reached officials in Scotland, who said this weekend they had received "no advance intelligence" that Glasgow might be a target.

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff declined to comment specifically on on the report today, but said "everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa."...

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3336148

[warkman]

The good news from these attacks seems to be that they do not have access as the Scum (IRA) did to Semtex or C4.
The request by the authorities for people not to use their cars but use public transport instead is horrific. More people in one place, and carnage can be huge in busses/trains.

I suppose we are lucky that they have gone for what are high profile targets than other targets which whilst not high profile would cause more panic and distress.

Looking at the Cherokee, it looks like they hit the edge wall of the entrance, if it was more straight on, it looks like it would have gone into the terminal itself.

[sky9]

I am amazed to see that the Glasgow fire was being hosed to little effect with what appears to be water. Is there any reason why they didn't use the same foam that should be used for aircraft fires? They didn't seem to have nearly as much success as I did recently with a 1 kg of dry power.

I was always told that you didn't use water to put out a petrol fire.