Media Byte on Recovery of Explosive Material in Aircraft

According to media reports the explosive was found in the cargo hold of the aircraft. The material weighing 10-15 gms was wrapped in a Malayalam newspaper in the shape of a ball. It was detected by airline staff when they carried out a routine check after baggage was unloaded. Police are carrying out further investigations at both Bangalore and Thiruvananthapuram airports.This is a paraphrased version of my comments made on the ND TV-Hindu on March 22, 2010.

Question:

A package containing explosive material was recovered from the aircraft flight KF 4731 from Banglaore when it reached Thiruvananthapuram yesterday. Does it not show security measures at our airports have failed? What is your take on this?

Own comment:

No security arrangement at airports can be one hundred percent fool proof at all times. But having said that, the incident shows there is a security lapse somewhere. There could be a number of reasons for this. The problem with our security is whenever an incident like this is reported, all security measures will be tightened and enforced properly. But after a few days we tend to slacken our measures and take a number of short cuts.

The airlines security staff also has a responsibility for security (in addition to airport security staff). I don’t know how much coordination is there among the different staff responsible for various aspects of security. Unless such co-ordination exists you cannot successfully enforce security measures. So security check of routine items like food containers for passengers, courier packages, daily newspaper parcels, courier’s bags etc. tend to slacken.

Another aspect is people listed as VIPs who are allowed pass through without any security check. Their baggage also is passed without security check. And the list of VIPs is big. Unless we enforce airport security measures without any such special treatment, you cannot be successful.

Enforcing every day such security measures for every flight in airports is a time consuming and tedious process. It also costs money. However, we will have to put up with it all if we are to ensure fool proof security. Are we ready?