Last friday a terror attack failed on an airline flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. When I heard the news my first thought was: “Airline security has done a good job.”
Why?
In the first place the news made me aware of the fact that so many time has gone by without any airline terrorist attack. Either, for some magical reason, the desire to commit an attack had disappeared. Or all desired attacks in the meantime had been successfully discouraged or prevented by airline security which seams quite an achievement to me. In the second place because the attack was unsuccessful. Even though the man had been able to smuggle flammable material the security measures have forced him to do concessions on the amount and consistency of his materials and his way of operating. Sure it was an attack, sure the plane was at risk but there is a huge difference between an attempt and really bringing an airplane down.
I was a bit surprised by the amount of panic and uproar that followed the attack. Surprised by the question why airline security didn’t track the attacker. Surprised by the fact it was seen as a failure of the system and security measures were tightened even further.
Airliners do crash due to technical failure. Only last week an American 737 overran the landing strip in Jamaica, luckily without fatalities. Long ago we used to say about this kind of crashes: “This should never have happened.” But over time we have learned to accept there is a statistical chance on failure that never can be fully eliminated and adapted a more mature approach. Aviation is under strict regulation that aims to prevent any known causes for technical failure. Any time a plane crashes the case is painstakingly investigated in order to find the cause of the accident and regulation is adapted accordingly. But accidents keep occurring. Finding failure mechanisms is like searching for a needle in a haystack, you can find many, you’ll never find all.
Finding this single dangerous terrorist on one of the hundreds of airfields, boarding one of the thousands of flights between one of the millions of passengers is like searching for a needle in a haystack as well. Demanding there is no risk at all will make air travel impossible. Maybe one day we can apply the mature approach of technical failure to passenger failure as well: remain alert, take measures against known risk and keep updating your procedures but do accept there always is a residual risk. Do accept that one failed terrorist attack every three years or so is not at all a bad score for airline security.
Update:
Security expert Bruce Schneier wrote on his blog: “Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers. This week, the second one worked over Detroit. Security succeeded.” I’m so glad that, with a magnifying glass, at least you can find some reasonable souls.
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