Airport Security Measures

May 1, 1997 12:00 PM, By MR. BILLIE H. VINCENT

Much comment and discussion have resulted from The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (more popularly known as the Gore Commission) recommendations regarding profiles and passenger baggage match requirements.

Unfortunately, even with the widespread publicity this discussion has engendered, the public and even the media are ill-informed on these subjects.

First, it should be recognized that profiles and baggage/passenger matches are not techniques for detecting explosives. They are triggers, i.e., a means to focus on areas that may present a higher probability of risk to flight safety.

Applying either of these processes results in greater efficiency by focusing on a smaller segment of passengers and baggage that encompasses the greatest risks.

For example, if it is known that one behavioral segment of passengers, such as hijackers and saboteurs, pose 80 percent of the threat, focusing on this segment results in greater efficiency and increased effectiveness in preventing these illegal acts. This does not mean it is prudent to ignore the remaining 20 percent, only that placing specific emphasis on known threat segments will result in a greater return for the resources expended.

Effectiveness however is the final criterion, not efficiency. We are not in the business of putting bombs on airplanes faster by concentrating on efficient movement of bags.

Once increased risks are identified, effective security measures using technology and/or physical searches must be employed to ensure that no weapons or explosive devices are allowed into controlled areas.

Profiles Profiles have been used to focus on specific segments of passengers since the late 1960s. Some U.S. aviation security profiles have been reasonably effective in preventing or interrupting hijackers, contrary to comments in the media. The successes are not publicized because each revelation adds to the public's knowledge of profiles, diminishing their effectiveness.

Some terrorist groups have carefully researched and collected data on aviation security systems and specific profile elements; this information greatly increases their ability to evade detection. Some state-sponsored terrorism elements have actually conducted training programs, complete with classrooms and aircraft fuselages, on targeting aviation security systems.

Comprehensive profile systems such as the El Al system are difficult to evade because little is known publicly about their processes and the specific elements of their profiles. Far too much has been disclosed about U.S. profile elements by the recent discussions about the Gore Commission's deliberations. In particular, the FAA should refrain from revealing any specific element of any U.S. aviation security profile and should cease public comment.

While you can apply profiles to inanimate objects such as cargo, baggage, etc., you ultimately have to tie the profile to an organization, and finally, to an individual or group.

Baggage/passenger matching There are many reasons for a bag becoming separated from its owner's flight. Most of these are legitimate and the unaccompanied bag presents no threat to the safety of flight.

In rare instances, however, the separation is deliberate and the unaccompanied bag may present a dire threat to the safety of flight. In still others a bag may be surreptitiously inserted into an airline's baggage system for criminal purposes such as movement of drugs or sabotage.

There are basically two types of security processes focusing on bags and passengers: matching passengers to bags and matching bags to passengers (see Figure 1).

Originating passenger/bag match In this process all passengers are matched with their checked bags. An originating passenger checks in with an airline at an airport, uses a ticket to get a boarding pass, checks one or more bags and proceeds to the departure gate. The airline then ensures that the passenger boards the flight; if he does not, his bags are located and removed from the flight (see Figure 1). This process is generally known as the originating passenger/baggage match and does not consider any bag that may already be in the belly of the aircraft. An originating passenger/baggage match is a partial bag match process if it does not reconcile the baggage and passengers already on board the aircraft at each stop.

Profile selectee or random passenger/baggage match The Gore Commission recommended this process as an interim measure until it could be determined through research that a full passenger/baggage match was operationally feasible in the U.S. domestic aviation system (see Figure 1). This process tracks only those passengers that have been singled out for added scrutiny through a profile process or a random selection. If the passenger meets the U.S. profile, or is selected on a random basis, that passenger's bags may receive security screening using an x-ray, Explosives Detection System (EDS), or a physical search, after which the passenger proceeds to the departure gate.

In the case of a profile selectee or a random selectee, the airline must ensure that the passenger actually boards the aircraft or have the passenger's bags removed from the flight.

Not addressed at this time by the Gore Commission is whether profile selectees or a random selectees will be matched to their bags on multi-segmented flight stopovers. In any event, this process is a partial passenger/baggage match (see Figure 1) as it ignores the majority of passengers.

Baggage/passenger match In this instance the process begins with identifying any and all baggage or other articles in, or to be loaded into, the belly of the aircraft and asks if there is a passenger on the aircraft associated with the bags. If there is no passenger associated with the specific bags or articles, other security processes are then brought into play to determine how the passenger became separated from the bags.

First and foremost, however, action is required to determine if there was ever a passenger associated with the bags. If a passenger cannot be identified within the aviation system, the bags should be immediately removed from the airplane. If a passenger is identified with the bags and was separated from them through no fault of the passenger, an effort is made to reunite the bags with the passenger. If, however, the reason cannot be determined for the separation of bags from the passenger, or if the circumstances surrounding the separation are suspicious, other security measures may be applied before the bags are moved on any airplane.

This process is known as a full baggage/passenger match and has generated controversy about whether it can be applied in the United States. U.S. airline representatives claim that application of a full baggage/passenger match at major hub airports where connection times are as low as 20 minutes would wreak havoc with on-time departures. Any such delays would reverberate throughout the airline system with substantial additional delays downstream.

The attendant security difficulties of multi-segmented flights add to the complexity. Any passenger with checked or carry-on bags departing point A for point C, with a brief stopover at point B, can leave the aircraft at point B and leave a bag with a bomb on board (see Figure 2).

Unless the airline tracks the passenger through an entire flight, an unaccompanied bag can be left by the departing passenger at any stopover, including one where a change of planes occurs. To prevent this, the airline must track a passenger and bags throughout the flight.

Unaccompanied rogue or non-passenger bags Over the history of aviation a number of criminal schemes have been discovered where bags have been shipped, frequently containing contraband. Almost all of these have involved airline employees who are using the airline to ship their personal items for purposes such as running a business or moving drugs.

Far more frightening are those instances where bombs have been introduced through employees who have inside access to an airport/airline's baggage system. In these instances only a full baggage/passenger match or the use of an EDS to screen all bags provides an opportunity to interrupt the process. Profiles will not prevent these types of criminal activities, as there are no passengers to profile.

Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988, was one of these tragic instances. Nonetheless, as the airline had an opportunity to interrupt the multi-segmented flight but failed to do so, Pan Am World Airways was subsequently convicted in U.S. Federal Court on July 10, 1992, for willful misconduct, and the insurance industry lost approximately $1 billion.

Gore Commission interplay The irony of the profile versus full bag match controversy is that it was generated by U.S. airlines attempting to avoid implementation of a full baggage match process.

Seeing an opportunity to avoid a requirement they considered onerous, the airlines suggested profiles instead. Opposition to this alternative suggestion immediately developed from members of the families of the victims of the Pan Am 103 tragedy and from well-informed industry groups. These individuals and groups knew that profiles would not catch certain types of attack scenarios (see Figure 1). The airlines then turned up the heat by lobbying President Clinton and Vice President Gore and their staffs as well as the Gore Commission staff and the commissioners themselves.

As the controversy intensified, the media began to publicize the issue and constitutional issues were raised by groups who opposed the use of profiles. These constitutional issues concerned the use of national origin, race, ethnicity, etc., as profile triggers. The Gore Commission then had to open their proceedings to these concerned groups and the result was a much watered-down recommendation regarding the use of profiles. Likewise, the Gore Commission waffled on the full bag match recommendation.

In the end the airlines shot themselves in the foot when they offered profiles as a replacement for a full bag match process and overstated the profile benefits. The resulting constitutional controversy may have compromised the effectiveness of any future profile application. The Gore Commission eventually recommended a substantially diminished passenger bag match process. As passengers we all lose because we need both profiles and full bag match as safety measures in the U.S. domestic aviation system.

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Opening Up About Door Closers
• An Enterprise Approach
• The Framework For Open Systems
• On A Higher Plane
• More from April's issue