Security Roundup

Air Safety Week, August 27, 2007

Date: 21-Aug
Incident: A risk analysis study has shown that another terrorist attack could
cost U.S. commercial aviation up to $420 billion. The new study is published in
the current issue of the scientific journal Risk Analysis. The study was
conducted by four scientists at the University of Southern California Center for
Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events - and subjected to a stringent
peer review. "We assumed a single attack on a major airport; we believe that
this would shut down the whole system with little difference in impact than if
several airports were attacked simultaneously," the authors said in Risk
Analysis.  "We used data on air passenger travel expenditures per passenger as
well as statistical analysis of the air traffic lost for the two-year aftermath
of the September 11, 2001, attacks to estimate direct demand losses for air
transportation services.  These were used along with a national input-output
model to assess the full costs of these losses". The study claims to have
justified the high costs of e

Date: 21-Aug
Incident: The TSA has trained 600 behavioral detection officers to spot
terrorists at airports, New York Times columnist Joe Sharkey writes. TSA
Administrator Kip Hawley also expects to double the number of detection officers
in the next fiscal year. Hawley noted that good detection officers could
recognize signs of "hostile intent." Cynical industry insiders expect a "proof
of the pudding" style outcome, replete with false alarms, embarrassing red
herrings, costly tourist deterrence and potential lawsuits.

Date: 20-Aug
Incident: One of two men who hijacked an AtlasJet Airlines plane heading for
Istanbul from northern Cyprus on 18 Aug was trained in camps run by al Qaeda
militants and planned to flee to Afghanistan, Turkish media reported Monday. The
MD83 landed at Antalya, Turkey for fuel; the pilots quickly baled out the
cockpit windows unnoticed by the hijackers. All 136 pax and 6 crew were
unharmed. Soon after takeoff the two men had tried to enter the cockpit,
claiming they had a bomb. It turned out to be a clay model.

Date: 20-Aug
Incident: Insulin-dependent diabetics have been warned to seek approval to carry
life-saving needles and medication onto flights after a man collapsed en route
to Sydney. The 54-year-old Sydney man was recently forced to fly from Norway to
Australia without medication because he did not have a letter from a GP. The
passenger was "very ill" on arrival, and was taken by ambulance to hospital
where he slowly recovered. Under tough new airline security measures, patients
must carry documentation to be allowed to take vital drug supplies onto flights.
Diabetics must carry a doctor's letter, a medical certificate, or a National
Diabetes Services Scheme card.

Date: 20-Aug
Incident: China's vice minister of the General Administration of Civil Aviation
has warned the state newspaper of hijack threats aimed at next year's summer
Olympics in Beijing. The caution was given the same day more than 600 civil
aviation, public security and firefighting officers participated in an anti-
hijacking drill in the port city of Dalian in Liaoning province in northeastern
China. Beijing Air traffic is expected to increase by 50 percent just prior to
next year's Games.

Date: 17-Aug
Incident: The FAA is giving U.S. airlines only a mere 60 days to comply with new
flight deck security rules. Officials say the short grace period will be
sufficient because most carriers already have many of the security procedures in
place.

Date: 16-Aug
Incident: A laser pest from Clint, Texas (a suburb of El Paso) who regularly
pointed his high-power laser at aircraft in cruise at 35,000 feet and also on
approach to El Paso, kept doing it often enough that the FBI was able to catch
him in the act. The laser used was more powerful than the pen-type (see
tinyurl.com/2kbzcn). Clinton Udet Pinckert, age 47 is expected to get a
deterrent exemplar custodial sentence under federal law that will cause him to
"see the light".

Date: 15-Aug
Incident: L-3 Communications has placed an order worth $17.5 million with
Analogic for its Explosive Assessment Computed Tomography systems and related
upgrade equipment. The first systems should ship in early 2008. "They feature
advanced multi-slice CT imaging technology and provide full 3-D images of all
the contents of a bag, enabling automatic detection of explosives," Analogic
said in a statement. "The hardware upgrades will enable airports to upgrade
examination systems already in the field."

Date: 11-Aug
Incident: ATC helped track down two pilots who helped themselves to a KingAir
100 at Lanseria, South Africa (near Johannesburg) and, after stealing the plane
(ZS-OUS), doing an illegal charter and then trying to sneak the plane back into
Lanseria. ATC tracked them down at Springs, before they took off back to
Lanseria, which led to their arrest upon arrival.

Date: 11-Aug
Incident: According to The Los Angeles Times, the issue that caused over 20,000
travelers to suffer lengthy delays at LAX International Airport on 11 Aug was
caused by a faulty network interface card (NIC) on a single Customs PC. The
card, which allows computers to connect to a local area network, experienced a
partial failure that started about 12:50 p.m. Saturday, slowing down the system
to a crawl, according to Jennifer Connors, a chief in the office of field
operations for the Customs and Border Protection agency. As data overloaded the
system, a domino effect occurred with other computer network cards, eventually
causing a total system failure a little after 2:00 p.m. A subsequent delay of
over four hours in sourcing an IT expert led to the system banking up even more.

Date: 9-Aug
Incident: The Department of Homeland Security will soon arm federal agents --
including air marshals, border patrol agents, and customs officials -- with a
non-lethal weapon that emits a blinding strobe light to subdue criminals. "The
light could be used to make a perp turn away or shut his eyes, giving
authorities enough time to tackle the suspect and apply the cuffs, all while
sparing the lives of passers by, hostages or airline passengers," according to a
description from the Homeland Security Department's science and technology
division. DHS hopes to have the LED Incapacitators in the hands of agents by
2010. Armed with $1 million in research and development funding from Homeland
Security, the devices are now under test by Intelligent Optical Systems.