Flight Security and Homeland Security…

Taking proactive measures for flight safety3
By Henry Morgenstern
President
Security Solutions International (SSI)
www.securitysolutionsint.com

Security Solutions International is the leading national training company for Homeland Security from awareness training for first responders, to hospital and medical response, helicopter and general aviation emergency response to acts of terror. The company has its headquarters at Kendall-Tamiami Executive airport.

The TSA’s guidelines for General Aviation Airports provide an admirable checklist for what may be the Achilles heel of general aviation – The GA Airport. The TSA document clearly states the measures that should be taken to ensure flight safety during normal and elevated risk periods. But the problems with the document start at the very beginning where the TSA states that these are “an extensive list of options, ideas and suggestions for the airport operator”. The GA industry transports 145 million passengers annually. More than 200,000 GA aircraft are responsible for 75% of all air traffic. Commercial, non-scheduled flights (charters) are also a part of GA with some 22,000 pilots flying some 14,700 aircraft a year. Does anyone know who is adhering to these options, ideas and suggestions and who is not?

Your flight department or (given the proliferation of fractional ownership) the flight department of the company you are dealing with may have an impeccable security policy in place. They may have conducted audits that bring them into line with the TSA’s Access Certification program (TSAAC). Your corporate security department and flight department may have followed all the guidelines. But aviation is not a one sided affair, determined by your department alone. Your aircraft must land at GA airports here in the US and at overseas airports. When you attend that meeting, while your aircraft is there, are there sufficient measures in place to secure the safety of your aircraft? How secure are you when you are there? Most importantly, what proactive measures can you take to ensure the safety of your passengers and equipment?

Recent warnings from the FBI about terrorists using both tour operators (helicopters) and even limousines as VBIED’s (Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices) has increased concern. In addition, with security at Commercial airports being tightened, terrorists could easily view the GA airport as a more vulnerable target. This is a real issue for corporate flight departments their crews, and their passengers.

The TSA’s Airport Characteristics Measurement Tool (ACMT) puts the burden of assessing an airport’s vulnerability on the state official, Airport Manager, or FBO operator. By following the tool’s basic definitions, your flight department can become more proactive and take a real role in ensuring security.

Even before take-off, crews should ensure that not only do they know the passengers and that passengers identify their luggage but also that there should be some policy for verifying the whereabouts of the luggage before the embarkation. Was the luggage left for any period of time at the FBO or home base? Was it unattended for any period of time? For the passengers traveling on charter aircraft the reverse is true. How well do they know the crew? Has anyone verified the charter company’s security plan, screening procedures, luggage handling procedures? Has the home base airport’s security procedure been assessed in the light of your flight department’s security plan?

The first priority of your flight plan’s security aspect should be the target airport’s location. The closer the airport is to a center of mass population the greater the risk at times of elevated terror alerts. This is common sense; but the real question is what your crew is doing when planning their flight to take this into account. Whenever your aircraft is flying to an airport, or if you frequently use airports that are close to large populations centers (defined by the TSA as 100,000 people or more) there are security related questions that you can investigate and measures you can take. Some of these might be:

• Is there 24/7 airport staffing?
• Does the tower operate continuously?
• What kind of personnel screening does the GA Airport have?
• What kind of ID system that personnel at the airport have?
• What kind of perimeter security is in place at the airport?
• Where will your aircraft be situated while you are on the ground and who will be taking care of the aircraft?
• What security arrangements are in place at the FBO where your passengers may spend time?

This information is readily available and if it is not, this in itself should raise a flag. While airports that are close to larger centers of population may seem of more concern, your concern is for your passengers and aircraft and the small airport should not be taken for granted. It is well known that smaller FBO’s suffer from a high-employee turn over and may not use standard screening procedures, if they have any at all. How often do you land at such airports? Hostile actions take planning and regular use of a facility enables this. That should be sufficient indication for you ensure that you investigate that airport’s procedures (even if authorities have a better chance of responding to an incident at a remote airport – you certainly won’t).

The TSA’s security awareness training program that CFI’s have had to take online since the summer of 2004 makes them more aware of some of these concerns. As a frequent passenger, with the freedom that General Aviation provides, you should consider a part of your duty to also make yourself aware of these issues.

Proper securing of aircraft, forms the next important phase in developing a secure flight plan. Even if you have verified all the details above, flight crews should use multiple means to ensure that their aircraft are not tampered with in any way while on the ground.

If an aircraft is to be stored in a hangar, then the hangar’s security arrangements are of supreme importance. This can include the use of auxiliary locks, making sure keys are not stored inside the aircraft, using keyed ignition where appropriate and having a strict policy in force for hangar keys.

At airport stops, measures should be employed to make sure the aircraft is not tampered while it is on the ground. This may include commercially available tamper proof seals in critical compartments as well as adding the verification of entry systems to your pre-flight checklist.

When the threat level is elevated, crews and passengers can take several proactive measures.

Apart from increased vigilance, and more stringent security planning certain emergency measures should be pre-planned and then employed. For example, without unduly inconveniencing passengers, more stringent identity verification processes could be ready for employment in such situations. So should crew identity verification be carried out under these conditions.

Ensuring the identification of crew and passengers should not be construed as an inconvenience when authorities have elevated the threat. Instead, passengers and crew could be shown that this is an additional safety feature.
Airports must share in the burden. Taxi services that can enter airport ramps should be carefully investigated, as should any other outside access to the airport. Security measures should be tested regularly for weaknesses but especially so during times of elevated risk.

Everyone involved in aviation should be ready, willing and able to execute contingency plans at these times.

There are vulnerabilities in the entire system and most of us know them well and it is not prudent to expose them to general discussion. For just one example, how well informed are charter companies or fractional-ownership organizations about the no fly list that is constantly being checked by the airlines at Part 121 airports? It is by no means clear that procedures are in place for checking each and every passenger chartering an aircraft especially since many charters are conducted in the name of corporations. The onus here is on the TSA to ensure that airport authorities and operators are well informed on a need-to-know basis of everyone that the DHS is seriously concerned about.

What is certain is that the everyone with a stake in aviation; The DHS, the FAA, GA Airports, FBO owners, charter and fractional ownership organizations and corporate or private aviation crew and passengers should not see a contradiction between better security and convenience. If the stakeholders take proactive measures, everyone will be safer, but we also may avoid the kind of regulations now in place for part 121 operators and precisely what differentiates General Aviation from the airlines.