How Terrorism Affects Airline Security

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The 9/11 Attacks
The 2006 Liquid Explosives Plot
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Airlines can be considered the transportation mode with the most stringent security procedures. The extensive checks of the person’s luggage, the confiscation of most edged objects regardless of their size, and the infamous ban on liquids are widely known and not replicated in railways or buses. The framework is the result of many different incidents, many of which have involved terrorist attacks.

In response to them, regulatory agencies throughout the world have begun to apply harsh policies that aim to minimise the probability of such events reoccurring. While each incident that succeeds or comes close leads to some revisions of safety practices, some were more influential than others. This paper will discuss how the 9/11 attacks have reformed the field of aviation security and how the 2006 liquid explosives plot serves as a demonstration of the new approach.

The 9/11 Attacks

During a discussion of terrorism and its effects on aviation security policies, it would be disingenuous not to mention the infamous 9/11 attacks. According to Price and Forre (2009), the eighteen terrorists involved hijacked four planes, with one crashing into the Pentagon and another getting retaken but then crashing. Cobb and Primo (2003) claim that the head of the Federal Aviation Administration proceeded to shut down all air travel in the United States due to fears of a similar event.

The ban succeeded at preventing any similar events while the government was busy drafting countermeasures. Al Qaeda took responsibility for the attack, and Topich (2018) adds that U.S. intelligence services later confirmed its involvement. As a result, the group entered the public consciousness, and the attack served as the trigger for the War on Terror.

The attack succeeded mostly because nobody had considered the possibility of using aeroplanes as missiles. Thomas (2008) describes a long history of plane hijackings, most of which were done with nonlethal intent. This tendency likely led security planners to dismiss hijackings as low-danger. According to Birkland (2006), the government had assumed that al Qaeda would keep limiting itself to small-scale acts of terror to avoid antagonising the U.S.

Many analysts blame the intelligence community and claim it could have suppressed al Qaeda in its infancy, thus preventing the act (Cusick, Cortes, & Rodrigues, 2017). Wallis (2003) adds that the CIA and FBI knew about the threat of the hijackers but did not see a reason to notify airline providers, which proved to be an oversight. However, the blame is not entirely on these organisations, and the aviation industry shoulders some responsibility.

The primary reason why the hijacking was possible is that the hijackers successfully smuggled weapons aboard. As such, countries began looking into more robust procedures, blaming scanners for being ineffective (Arora, Bacouel-Jentjens, & Edmonds, 2018).

The U.S. government tried to address both the intelligence issue and the security concerns by making screening procedures federalised and mandatory while also expanding the lists of dangerous individuals alongside numerous other initiatives (Elias, 2010). By introducing a consistent screening standard and taking every measure against letting potential threats enter aeroplanes, it hoped to minimise the chances of an armed hijacking. Additionally, according to Karlsson (2016), many countries began reconsidering their air traffic surveillance measures. Nations and aviation companies recognised the laxness of their security measures and took measures to address them.

The event was massively influential in the minds of both the public and the professionals who work in and with the aviation industry. Public opinion led to a reduction in air travel, and it took a year for usage to recover (Rothman, 2016). Moreover, numerous people became aware of aviation terrorism and were concerned about it, driving their governments to begin addressing the issue (Zaffar, 2019). Additionally, agencies that oversee aviation changed their course and became much more stringent in their enforcement of security to avoid a repeat of the incident (Eldridge et al. 2018). After 9/11, aviation companies and their associates shifted their concern from guaranteeing passenger comfort to preventing loss of life at all costs.

The 2006 Liquid Explosives Plot

The 9/11 attack is the most prominent aviation-related terrorism incident in the public mind. However, many other significant influences led to significant changes in security policies, as well. One of them is the 2006 plot, which is the reason for the institution of the infamous liquid ban, which was discussed before that but never used (Szyliowicz & Zamparini, 2018). One likely reason for this lack of publicity is that the conspirators were apprehended before they could act (Sauter & Carafano, 2019). However, curiously, failures such as this one tend to create more of a public policy reaction than some earlier successes, such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (Crenshaw & LaFree, 2017). The successful prevention of the attack through a pre-emptive arrest demonstrates the changes in terror-related intelligence activities that 9/11 has caused.

After the 2001 incident, various agencies began introducing numerous security measures that have succeeded at preventing another act of a similar scale. However, as Schneier (2003) notes, reinforcing any specific aspect of security is not enough because terrorists will typically target the seams where systems connect, which are challenging to fortify. The 2006 plotters, in particular, decided to exploit screening devices, which were positioned between airport security and aeroplane defences (Baum, 2016).

According to Gale, Radu, and Sicherman (2017), despite the measures taken after the 9/11 attack, screeners failed to improve and were unable to detect guns and various other hazards. The plotters intended to pass through scanners safely with an undetectable explosive, giving the security personnel no reason to suspect them.

It should be noted that the idea of using liquid explosives was not new at the time, and the failure to consider it suggests laxness on the part of the counter-terrorism planners. Cubbage and Brooks (2016) claim that such a device was tested in 1995 and led to the death of an airline passenger, but the event did not prompt a reaction. As a result, scanners were not prepared for the task, and governments had to resort to a total ban on liquids (Chermak, 2019). According to Belobaba, Odoni, and Barnhart (2016), the ban has been relaxed slightly since then, but travellers are still forbidden from bringing in more than 100 ml of liquid. There is no indication that the provision will be removed in the near future.

The incident serves as a demonstration of the proactive shift in aviation security planning. The two approaches used for scanners, metal detectors, and explosive trace detectors, cannot detect some explosives even if combined, and training security dogs is challenging and expensive but not necessarily productive (Enerstvedt, 2017). Moreover, defensive technological approaches are inadequate because the attacker always has the advantage (Conklin, White, Cothren, Davis, & Williams, 2016).

For example, the 2006 event could happen again in a vacuum if enough terrorists brought 100 ml bottles of explosives. It is particularly challenging for the industry to adapt to potential new vectors of attack, such as drones or wireless devices (Michaelides-Mateou, 2016; Aman, Chua, & Sikdar, 2019). As a response, aviation security has shifted to proactive prevention via intelligence operations (Jaffe, 2016; Stewart & Mueller, 2018). It is a flawed solution, but it is necessary for the prevention of another devastating attack.

Conclusion

The 9/11 attacks have led the aviation industry and the regulatory agencies that oversee it to reconsider their approach to terrorism. Both the scale of the damage and the usage of planes as missiles defied the expectations of intelligence agencies and security planners. In the aftermath, the industry reoriented itself to consider terrorism an active threat and begin to implement sweeping measures to counter it. Regardless, terrorists remain ahead of both technologically and in terms of knowledge of the weaknesses of aviation systems. This tendency is unlikely to change in the future, and counter-terrorism planners have to leverage other strengths. While stringent policies and technological advances are still necessary, proactive approaches are critical to the safety of aviation.

References

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