September-October 2022 - 31

COVER STORY
THE ISSUE
IS THAT
AVIATION
SECURITY
HAS ALWAYS LOOKED
AT RISK AS THREAT
VULNERABILITY AND
CONSEQUENCE. YOU
HAVE TO ACTUALLY
HAVE AN ACTIVE
THREAT IN ORDER TO
HAVE A RISK THAT YOU
HAVE TO MITIGATE. "
Pennsylvania field, " By 8:00 a.m. on
the morning of Tuesday, September
11, 2001, they had defeated all the
security layers that America's civil
aviation security system then had in
place to prevent a hijacking. "
The evolution of airport security
since 9/11 has been forged by
many subsequent challenges
that
have grabbed frightening headlines
- from a shoe bomber and potentially
explosive liquids to the morbidly
humorous underwear bomber. These
threats also provided the momentum
for Congress to pass the Aviation
and Transportation Security Act and
create the Transportation Security
Administration in November 2001,
which now is an agency of more than
65,000 employees.
The Evolution of Aviation
Security Mitigation
The success the TSA has had in
thwarting terroristic mayhem in
American airports and on its airlines
is undeniable when you consider there
has not been a successful attack on a
commercial airline in the U.S. in
the two decades post-9/11. But most
security experts agree that success
can breed complacency, so aviation
security professionals like Lee Kair
figure their key role is to ensure that
the industry stays one step ahead of
the bad guys.
" The issue is that aviation security
has always looked at risk as threat
vulnerability and consequence. You
have to actually have an active threat
in order to have a risk that you have
to mitigate. Everyone knows there
are vulnerabilities, but if there's not
a threat, it's challenging to make the
argument that you had to put a mitigation
in place to counter that threat.
If you go back way before 9/11, they
initially started putting walkthrough
metal detectors in place because there
was a handgun threat for a hijack.
They weren't necessarily as concerned
about explosives, so there was
not widespread use of explosive trace
detection or other things, " says Kair,
a former head of Security Operations
at TSA and currently a principal and
head of Security Risk & Resilience
Federal Strategy Practices with the
Chertoff Group, a global advisory
services firm.
The reality of aviation security is
that airlines and airports historically
did as much as they felt necessary to
maintain the illusion of safety and
security with passengers while minimizing
the impact on their bottom
lines. The heyday of airline hijacking
began in earnest on May 1, 1961,
when the first U.S. Airline flight was
hijacked to Cuba. A National Airlines
flight from Marathon, Florida, to Key
West, was hijacked by a man carrying
a knife and a gun who demanded the
flight divert to Havana where he said
he had been hired to assassinate Fidel
Castro. This began a spate of hijacking
to Cuba and elsewhere over the next
two decades.
Whether the hijackers demanded a
free trip to Cuba, Russia or Rome, or
held the airline hostage for a proposed
ransom, hijacking wasn't considered
a major threat to industry and was
viewed by some executives as the cost
of doing business or by passengers as
an adventurous inconvenience.
However, as the public and airlines
both began to tire of the regular
Lee Kair, a former head of Security
Operations at TSA, is currently
a principal and head of Security
Risk & Resilience Federal Strategy
Practices with the Chertoff Group.
interruptions in operations and the
potential for bad outcomes increased,
the industry knew they had to act.
While airlines were not on board
with requiring compulsory passenger
screening and establishing terminal
checkpoints, the FAA launched an
anti-hijacking task force in 1968. The
task force eventually decided to make
ticket agents the first line of defense
since they interacted with passengers
getting a boarding pass or tickets and
were trained to notice " suspicious "
behavior. Of course, this was no more
than window dressing. But a serious
detour in the security mindset would
take almost 15 years to occur.
The hijacking of TWA Flight 847
transformed the concept of airline
hijacks from a nuisance event into a
deadly global game of cat and mouse.
In June of 1985, for 17 days, TWA
Flight 847 was forced to crisscross the
NATALIIA NESTERENKO | 1300485677 | GETTY IMAGES
September-October 2022

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