The Insider Threat to Air Travel

H4 Solutions ^ | 04/10/2019 | Kelly Hoggan

[BigKahuna]

Commercial airports are complex environments, with many airlines and thousands of employees and travelers entering and leaving them daily, so protecting them from harm is vitally important. Unfortunately, and as history has shown, airports, airlines and the flying public are attractive targets for people and organizations wishing to do them harm. And that harm comes from a variety of directions, such as from terror groups and their fighters. What’s even more worrying is that these threats sometimes come from “insiders.”

According to the International Air Transport Association, an airport insider is someone who exploits their role in or their knowledge of an airport for unauthorized (i.e., unlawful) purposes. Insiders may be full-time or part-time employees of the airport, its airlines or others authorized to be in sensitive areas. These areas include the tarmac and airliners on it, baggage holding areas and other non-public spaces. Because of their unique access, airport insiders can potentially do significant harm to the flying public if they’re motivated enough. Consider:

In 2010, a British Airways employee was caught plotting to blow up a plane by using his insider access as an IT expert. He was allied with a Yemen-based terror group and specifically sought employment with BA to exploit the access to UK airliners and airports he was given. He aimed to smuggle a bomb aboard one of his airline’s commercial jets.

In 2015, the Russian airline MetroJet suffered a devastating terror attack when a bomb exploded on one of its airliners while it was over the Egyptian portion of the Sinai Desert. It’s believed that a mechanic working at the Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport planted the device aboard the aircraft before it departed. More than 220 people lost their lives in that attack.

[BigKahuna]

It's not a question of "if." It's only a question of "when" it will happen in the United States.

[BobL]

Well, there is an EASY ANSWER. But to avoid being labeled as anti-Islamic, I won’t say what that answer is.

[EEGator]

Don’t hire any filthy ragheads.

[I want the USA back]

Since muzzies are hired to work at airports, some muzzies will use their job access to blow up a plane. What can you do to them? Nothing. You can do nothing to people who believe that they will be in paradise with 72 virgins for blowing up humans. There is nothing which will stop them. You’ll put them in jail? You’ll fire them? A joke!
They’re going to have 72 perpetually virgin whores and you won’t!

[minnesota_bound]

Over 1,000 somalis at the Mpls/St Paul airport.
Makes you feel safe.
Lots of fraud too helping terrorists.
http://www.fox9.com/news/investigators/millions-of-dollars-in-suitcases-fly-out-of-msp-but-why

[Wuli]

It’s a commercial for a security solutions consulting outfit.

[Reno89519]

And note all of the Islamic cot members working at our airports every time you travel. Terrorists hiding in open sight.

[Slyfox]

And then there is AOC talking about stopping air travel altogether.

Retirees don't want to hear that kind of talk.

[hanamizu]

It’s not just airports. ‘Insiders’ can make any facility vulnerable. The murderer who shot up the school in Florida was an ‘insider’—he knew the layout, the procedure for fire drills, etc. Someone who works at a sports venue, or a movie theater, or any place where large numbers of people can be found can use “that insider knowledge” to inflict the maximum damage. Background checks can help, but if it’s the first time the person has decided to go crazy, what can anyone do?

[BigKahuna]

Yup. Anyone who knows the ins and outs of a facility, such as a water treatment plant or, God forbid, a nuclear power plant (and I think they get a much more intensive background investigation than the average airport worker does) can use that knowledge to do some damage.

I’ve been screaming for years that the U.S.’s critical infrastructure is wide-open vulnerable to serious attack. And that’s not to mention that terrorists can simply park outside an airport and fire off a MANPAD (man-portable... and can we still say “man”?... anti-aircraft missile) at planes taking off or landing. And then there are drones these days.

Yeesh. The threat matrix keeps growing and those guys are going to constantly probe air transportation for weaknesses and then exploit them. One of my anti-terror instructors back in the day always referred back to that old saying: “They only have to succeed once while we have to succeed every single time in defending against them.”

Like I said: It’s not a matter of “if,” but of “when.”

[BigKahuna]

I don’t think the MSP airport could operate these days without Somalis, and that’s pretty sad. I looked up the stats, and several who used to work there are known to have gone back to Somalia (lovely place, Mogadishu) and joined the local terror group, Al-Shabaab. That’s nothing but trouble for us, eventually, if they make their way back here. Always assuming they didn’t get themselves blown up fighting or trying to make a suicide bomb vest, that is. ;-)

[hanamizu]

“and I think they get a much more intensive background investigation”

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Most facilities can’t afford the time and money to do the background check if it comes down to it.

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“U.S.’s critical infrastructure is wide-open vulnerable to serious attack.”

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Our society as a whole is wide open. I have family in Costa Rica. Nice homes and even not so nice homes are purposely built to keep people out—razor wire on walls, bars on windows, security doors, etc. (I believe this is true for most of Latin America). After visiting down there you are struck by how defenseless the average American home looks to the people crossing our borders illegally everyday.

[ridesthemiles]

I refuse to fly thru the MPLS/St Paul airport for that very reason.