Should we vet foriegn airports

[littlewoman]

It is now obvious that whatever caused flight K9268 to fall out of the sky, the security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport was a joke.

An Airbus weighs from 39 to 48 tonnes empty (depending on model) and all aeroplanes carry extra fuel in case they need to divert from their destination airport for any reason. Which means that as they are flying over our country to land at one of our airports (most of which are on the outskirts of major cities) there is a very large chunk of metal with lots of flammable stuff on board. Up to now all bombs on aircraft have been aimed at destroying the aircraft. But it seems very possible to me that if you can get a bomb on the aircraft it would be possible to detonate it once it was over a target city.

So would it be pertinent for the foreign office for countries to vet all foreign airports for their security provisions before allowing them to have direct flights to the UK. Surely there must be any number of police officers, diplomatic staff etc. travelling through airports on holiday, if not business who could be asked to report any dodgy security so that an assessment could be done on anywhere raising concerns. I'm not suggesting that every fault would be found, but surely some form of vetting would be better than nothing. An alternative might be to have EU entry points in the airports where EU employed staff could do security, passport checks and immigration checks at the foreign airport for any passengers heading to the EU. That might stop a number of problems including catching smugglers at the country they are coming from where penalties are often harsher.

 

[deltasierra70]

typo

Before moving here in 1989, I use to demo certain kit I made at a location often referred to as the "Pig Farm" (because of the Priggin' smell) which is a part of Heathrow where certain aircraft get parked, and a critical part of the Met's Internationally acclaimed "Hostage Negotiation" Course takes place. One one occasion I took someone (SBS) who posts here with me to help with comms. My kit would pickup noise inside the hull, amplify it then TX it up to 400 metres away, but on LHR it was wouneld down to 100m. Technicaly the LHR were in charge, but the Met generally ignored that. On this occasion several funny things happened. The LHR bod needed info on who was who, and I gave the name and added SBS. "You mean SAS" No SBS I repeated. I then watched him write down SAS, and muttered "You should know better..." An hour later I walked out to the aircraft with two people from the Met and a an American for them to see how the 'head' was attached to the aircraft. On the way back we notice someone creeping around a bush trying to head us off. He greeted us with "Evening Gents, and what are you doing out here? and can I see some form of Identification..." "This is going in my book when I write it!" the senior plod stated. The American said; "If this was LAX we'd all be dead!" Back then my company was called "Airborne Sentinel Ltd." Here it was "Airborne Sentinel Inc."
There's no real way of stopping hijacking of aircraft, or ensuring no bombs ever get put on live aircraft. It is an interesting problem that's never going to go away while nutters are prepaid to die with the bomb.
DS

It is now obvious that whatever caused flight K9268 to fall out of the sky, the security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport was a joke.

An Airbus weighs from 39 to 48 tonnes empty (depending on model) and all aeroplanes carry extra fuel in case they need to divert from their destination airport for any reason. Which means that as they are flying over our country to land at one of our airports (most of which are on the outskirts of major cities) there is a very large chunk of metal with lots of flammable stuff on board. Up to now all bombs on aircraft have been aimed at destroying the aircraft. But it seems very possible to me that if you can get a bomb on the aircraft it would be possible to detonate it once it was over a target city.

So would it be pertinent for the foreign office for countries to vet all foreign airports for their security provisions before allowing them to have direct flights to the UK. Surely there must be any number of police officers, diplomatic staff etc. travelling through airports on holiday, if not business who could be asked to report any dodgy security so that an assessment could be done on anywhere raising concerns. I'm not suggesting that every fault would be found, but surely some form of vetting would be better than nothing. An alternative might be to have EU entry points in the airports where EU employed staff could do security, passport checks and immigration checks at the foreign airport for any passengers heading to the EU. That might stop a number of problems including catching smugglers at the country they are coming from where penalties are often harsher.

The "Shoe Bomber" and the "Underwear Bomber" (it is believed) walked on 'clean' and had to take the Loo apart to get their bombs, which why they were in there so long, putting the panels back in place. Why not just set it off in there? They were sitting where they could see where they were to drop the aircraft. If not, why come out of the loo to do it?
Moving on... As my daughter put it; "Dad, you can't make this shit up"

 

[premier]

LW,

The quick answer is yes we should, posing the next few questions of
Who,? When,? How often?

Although it should happen to think there would be one global governing body for airports... Never happen!

Could you imagine the liability claims they would be in for in the event of failed measures they were in charge of? Furthermore using Fifa as an example the corruption and greed that the said body would be subjected to, it's a very novel idea that works only in an ideal world which we don't live in.

Regards

premier

 

[deltasierra70]

LW,

The quick answer is yes we should, posing the next few questions of
Who,? When,? How often?

Although it should happen to think there would be one global governing body for airports... Never happen!

Could you imagine the liability claims they would be in for in the event of failed measures they were in charge of? Furthermore using Fifa as an example the corruption and greed that the said body would be subjected to, it's a very novel idea that works only in an ideal world which we don't live in.

Regards

premier

Back when I was being paid on a regular basis, we had to make simple reports on whatever seemed odd or unusual at points of entry in the UK and wherever I or we had been. Did anyone read them? Dunno. Did anyone ever question what we wrote? Never. Did I ever write something silly? No, never.
A 'By the way' we were never allowed to fly in 747 Combi's... Interesting logic.

 

[premier]

Back when I was being paid on a regular basis, we had to make simple reports on whatever seemed odd or unusual at points of entry in the UK and wherever I or we had been. Did anyone read them? Dunno. Did anyone ever question what we wrote? Never. Did I ever write something silly? No, never.
A 'By the way' we were never allowed to fly in 747 Combi's... Interesting logic.

DS,

I imaging a civil servant type, sitting with a table lamp on their desk blindly stamping your reports and then filing them in to a locking cabinet in a locked cellar, within a government building which isn't in any directory!

Any Intel or information that is / was passed on will be stored for a day when we might need to know the weakness of a facility, not used to strengthen its security....
Unless it was one of our own of course.

Regards

premier

 

[deltasierra70]

DS,

I imaging a civil servant type, sitting with a table lamp on their desk blindly stamping your reports and then filing them in to a locking cabinet in a locked cellar, within a government building which isn't in any directory!

Any Intel or information that is / was passed on will be stored for a day when we might need to know the weakness of a facility, not used to strengthen its security....
Unless it was one of our own of course.

Regards

premier

The shortest report I did was; "Went there, did that, came back." It was never questioned. The reinbursement chitty was another matter... "Why did three of you have lunch in the Savoy! And who were the other two people?"

 

[protectasia]

LW,

I'm led to believe that to some extent that this is already happening. Any airlines that fly direct to the UK are checked (not sure the frequency) at last point of departure, a job covered by the embassy there. Not sure how much of the airport is checked, but the airlines own procedures including baggage are reviewed.

 

[Customloads]

It cannot practically be done by the UK alone, and as said above it were an "independent" global body then bribes would be order of the day!

I would argue that security should be lighter, as it is a disruption to international trade. This coming from an Avsec guy! lol

Perhaps international air marshals with authority from the UN? Their remit could include reporting on the airports they leave from and arrive in.

 

[Starlight]

With the amount of dross we've got kicking around in the UK now, I suspect the other nations are wondering if they should be vetting our airports.....

 

[deltasierra70]

With the amount of dross we've got kicking around in the UK now, I suspect the other nations are wondering if they should be vetting our airports.....

It still comes back to the poorest paid at airports have the greatest access to 'live' aircraft. "Here's a picture of your wife/girlfriend/mother/daughter with today's newspaper tied to your bed. When you are cleaning this aircraft, change the life vest in seat 2A for this one and your wife/girlfriend/mother/daughter will be OK." I am not suggesting it would happen at any UK airport, but it was thought about 20 plus years ago, and someone suggested developing an archway that would detect excessive stress on the cleaners, caterers, ground crew and the security people. But, moving on...

 

[fbg]

Back in the 90s i was part of a team sent to Egypt to train the airport security and police> They were immensley proud of their new metal detectors and X ray baggage machines as they told me no one had ever tried to take guns or drugs through since they were installed as no alarms had gone off> It took but a few minutes to show them where to plug them in and turn on the monitors.
It took another six weeks to show them how to profile people and what to look for on the x ray monitors.
It was a bizarre experience as a female they took notice of me during training sessions but then totally ignored me at break times.
Although one evening when sitting around the hotel bar a Kuwaiti Prince insisted on doing the sand dance to thank me and the UK for coming to Kuwaits aid when Sadam invaded. Happy days

 

[Carl Dowd]

If this has been said already? my apologies... We do vet other airports... Dept of Transport!

CD

 

[deltasierra70]

Back in the day, when we had Airborne Sentinel Ltd and Airborne Sentinel Inc., it was a waste of time, probably still is, unless you have unlimited people, cameras, recorders and other kit. Just an opinion from past experience.