Was Laxed Airport Security to Blame for Zaventem Airport Bombing?

Ryan Healy March 25, 2016
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Tuesday’s attack on Brussels’ Zaventem Airport put much of the world on alert of potential attacks to their transportation infrastructure.  While security forces were strengthened at airports throughout the world security experts feel there is still no one size fits all method of how to fully harden airport security.

Israeli security officials who are tasked with reviewing and assigning safety measures to international airports that send flights to Tel Aviv visited a few weeks prior to Tuesday’s attacks. The security team found what they called “significant shortcomings” at Zaventem Airport.

Pini Schiff, a former aviation supreme security officer at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, noted that Belgium is 40 years behind Israel in their airport security. Israel uses stringent screening of passengers outside the airport and also makes passenger manifests available to security so they can check them to any potential flight risks.

This also came on top of an European Union (EU) inspection of Zaventem on February 29 in which they highly recommended immediate overhauls to security at the airport.

In contrast, a European Commission official claimed that Zaventem Airport did not provoke any attack and they could not find anything wrong with the airport.

Zaventem was under a level three threat alert after the November Paris attacks and did have uniformed and armed soldiers patrolling the airport, but security was reduced when the alert level went down.

An unconfirmed report from the El Boukari brothers uncle stated that the two worked at Zaventem Airport as cleaners during the summer months, and may have known the layout of the facility.

There has been a long history of targeting airports including domestically and internationally:

Some countries have expanded additional layers of security that include mandatory screenings of passengers and bags, along with cars, taxis, and buses at airport entrances. Notable countries who use these security measures include Israel, Russia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa.

Before installing security checkpoints experts need to decide of how they apply to all airports which include level of risk, size, architecture, number of entrances, and types of passengers. Competition between airports will also determine what level of security each one receives.

Even with the most secure comprehensive strategic approach in place, no venue is completely protected from the risk of attack. Officials need to ask themselves if the strategy at the time of the attack utilized intelligence and surveillance, and was designed to deter, detect and respond to the threat.

Norman Shanks, a consultant and former head of security for Heathrow Airport, noted that some countries make travelers present their ticket and passport at the entrance in a means to keep non-passengers out, but this is insufficient if the bombers bought a ticket.”

Shanks also included increased surveillance such as focusing on the bombers who where wearing a single black glove, but had no hand luggage should have immediately drawn suspicion. He also noted though that surveillance and increased profiling makes civil rights groups angry over racial profiling and stereotyping.

The European Union (EU) has agreed to hold an emergency meeting next week to discuss airport security. The meeting will be lead by the  EU’s Aviation Security (AVSEC) Committee and will focus on hardening security at 800 European airports.

Ryan Healy
Latest posts by Ryan Healy (see all)

Please Share:

Tags: , , , , , , , ,