Security at European airports is coming under urgent scrutiny as the mystery continues to surround the cause of the EgyptAir crash. While it isn’t clear what caused Flight 804 to drop out of the sky and smash into the Mediterranean, the history of security lapses at all the airports the plane visited that day is heightening suspicions terrorism was behind the crash.
Aviation experts also note there was no distress broadcast by the pilot while the plane was twisting and veering, which is adding to the suspicions of a terrorist plot just two months after deadly attacks at Belgium’s Zaventem airport.
The Zaventem attacks were carried out land-side in a passenger terminal but if Flight 804 was brought down by a bomb the most likely explanation, aviation experts and government officials say, is that a device was put on board by an airport staffer at one of the four airports the plane visited that day.
Terrorism isn’t the only possible cause for the crash — aviation experts caution that a catastrophic mechanical failure or pilot error could have brought down the airliner.
While there can be no definitive explanation of what happened until the cockpit voice-recorder is recovered from the Mediterranean Sea — and that may take weeks, even months — European security officials aren’t wasting time.
At Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport, where the Airbus 320 took off for its final journey, security arrangements are already under review with attention being focused on the nearly 90,000 airport staff, including baggage handlers and aircraft ground crew.
The EgyptAir jet was on its fifth flight of the day. It had made several other journeys — from Asmara in Eritrea to Egypt, going to Tunis and back from Cairo and making the trip from the Egyptian capital to Paris before setting out on its return. Investigators are also reviewing security arrangements at the stops made by the plane in the hours before the disaster with the focus again on what could have happened airside and on airport staff.
Aviation security analyst Chaim Koppel of International Security Defense Systems in Dallas, Texas says nowadays it would be easier for airport employees to get a bomb on board a commercial jet than to use passengers, who go through far more stringent checks when entering departure lounges. “The most vulnerable part of our aviation security system is the screening of employees. Physical screening of employees, and that’s where emphasis should go to and money should go to,” he argues.
Charles De Gaulle already has a routine re-screening process. France’s transport minister, Alain Vidalies, insisted Friday that security was tight at the airport, the busiest in Continental Europe.
Since January 2015, more than 60 staff have had their authorization revoked at Paris’ two main international airports because of possible “links with Islamic extremism.” The thought that Charles De Gaulle might have been where, if there was a device, it was smuggled on board is a nightmare scenario for aviation experts.
Parallels are bringing drawn with last October’s downing of a Russian Metrojet Airbus by jihadists shortly after it took off from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheik airport, where tourists complained security was lax. The Islamic State group claimed it placed a “drink can bomb” on the jet and most experts believe the terrorists used ground crew to sneak the device on board.
After that terrorist attack aviation security expert Philip Baum warned, “Identifying ‘bad eggs’ is no easy task,” saying airport employees are “low-paid, transient workers.”
“A perfect system does not exist,” said Sylvain Prevost, trainer in air transport security for the ASTC (Aviation Security Training Center). “The question today is: if something did happen at Charles de Gaulle, then there must have been people colluding in it, because now it’s extremely difficult to penetrate airport security.”
According to British travel writer Simon Calder, if it turns out a device was sneaked on board the EgyptAir A320 in Paris “airline passengers’ faith in global aviation would be shaken.”
Some European security officials admit privately that they are hoping, if the downing of the EgyptAir plane was caused by an act of terrorism, it involved a device smuggled on board while the airliner was at airports in North Africa and the Horn of Africa and not Paris, a top-draw airport that is meant to be one of the most secure in the World.
But that would be no consolation for the relatives of the 66 killed — nor would it lessen the security challenges raised for the global aviation industry. It would mean the terrorists had confidence about the sophistication of their timing mechanism, presumably wanting the bomb to explode after it had reached or left Paris.
Questions would turn also to how security can be improved in Africa and what new procedures should be introduced for checking passenger jets on the ground after they have flown in from other countries — European or otherwise. Flight and cabin crews are meant to check their aircraft visually between flights but that may have to change and more stringent inspections could be in the offing.
That would have ripple effects for airlines — especially low-cost carriers. They cut costs and fares by aiming for fast airport turnovers.
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