Aviation security 4.3

Aviation security

August 31st 2022

    Most of us dread going to the airport, the rule of thumb is to get there 2 hours early before the flight so you have time to get through check-in and the security screenings. The lines for security are long and TSA always seem to be unstaffed. In the moment I hate standing in the lines and having to take off my shoes and get scanned but I know they are there for everyones safety. 

    Criminals and terrorist are clever and they are always trying to find ways to smuggle in contraband or weapons onto a flight, its a never ending game of cat and mouse and TSA always has to be one step ahead. Airport security has metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs and sometimes they have armed agents doing random checks on passengers who seem a little nervous. All of these layers are pretty easy to spot by everyone but one things that is hard to catch is the insider threat. An insider threat is typically a current or former employee, third party contractor, or a business partner (CSIA) and no machine can detect wether they are going to be a threat or not. 

    In July of 2019, a disgruntled American Airlines mechanic was arrested by the FBI and charged with deliberately sabotaging a flight from Miami bound to the Bahamas (Slotnick, D). He claimed he was upset due to stalled negotiation talks between the union representing the mechanics and the airline. He took action and tampered with the planes air data module. One of the current layers the TSA has is random employee screenings, but TSA has to be lucky to be able to catch a random employee that is doing something bad. A simple look into the history of the disgruntled mechanic would show that he doesn't have a good track record and even having to be retrained a couple of times. His lackluster performance should of been routed for further investigation and in doing so the sabotage might of never happened. 

https://www.cisa.gov/insider-threat-mitigation

Slotnick, D., 2019. The American Airlines mechanic charged with sabotaging a plane was previously fired from another airline. Business Insider. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/american-airlines-mechanic-charged-sabotage-fired-alaska-airlines-2019-9?r=US&IR=T [Accessed August 31, 2022]. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/american-airlines-mechanic-charged-sabotage-fired-alaska-airlines-2019-9?r=US&IR=T