Emerging Security Threats in the Aviation Industry

 


After 9/11, the world of aviation forever changed both in execution and security. President George W. Bush signed legislation creating the Transportation Security Administration, which ensured a forced airport screening agency labeled as TSA to replace the private airport security that airlines were individually hiring. All bags were to be checked, personal items were to be removed, privacy was of no concern. Every person who stepped foot in an airport would be monitored digitally as well as physically up until they exited the airport at their destination. 

With the countless threats that terrorism posed, it was important to monitor all of the ways in which an attack could take place: one of which being suicide bombings. "Skill in constructing Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) or Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED) is likely to influence the type of attack it might execute. Chemists with only rudimentary skills may be restricted to assembling basic devices. A skilled journeyman may have the competence needed to build a range of IEDs from small to large that are highly concealable or have advanced capabilities such as multiple triggering methods, directional blasts, or increased blast effect." (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, current). Most explosives are created with an organic nitrogen compound called "Trinitrotoluene" which has a remarkable insensitivity to friction and shock, making it easily transportable and not highly detectable as it can be malleable to different casings and carriers. 
TSA acted fast in recruiting the only proven method of explosive detection, mans best friend. 

Currently in the world there are more than 1000 k-9 units that are responsible for TSA's efforts to mitigate the threat of an in-air or airport bombing by screening cargo and passengers. These highly capable animals can break down chemical components of odor that us humans simply cannot, and they are rigorously trained through distracting scenarios with their handler during a 12 to 16 week course, to ensure the animal comes from a line of high drive to work and a clear head in various environments. “Without the help of dogs, American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan can find about 50% of the improvised explosive devices hidden by the enemy.  However, when bomb-sniffing dogs patrol with the soldiers, the teams find about 80% of the devices.” (Goldish, 2012). It is obvious that detection work is the primary focus of the dog and handler, however there is room for improvement in all facets of counter-terrorism. 

"Substance detection tasks, which mostly occur in the context of intense human activity such as urban landscapes, are a relatively recent application of dogs for which there has been very limited directed selective breeding. Increasing evidence indicates that behavioral characteristics have a greater influence on detection dog success than sensory or morphological differences" (Canine Performance Sciences Program, 2020). This means that identifying a reliable dog is a skill lacking in genetic background, resulting in a large amount of dogs failing their operational status, which has obvious setbacks for concerns about animal welfare as well as detection program efficiency. In the same way that shepherds genetically herd, pointers genetically hunt, retrievers genetically retrieve; with the billions of dollars spent in attempting to build technological means of detection, the money would be better spent in creating breeding programs exclusive to genetically enhanced detection skills that have already proven to be more effective than human interference. 

These are my simple thoughts as a handler of a working dog, who takes all of 30 seconds to locate a single kibble I threw into the field. 



References: 

The Counter Terrorism Guide, https://www.dni.gov/nctc/methods.html#sarin

Bomb-sniffing dogs, by Meish Goldish, 2012.

Selecting Dog's for Explosives Detection,  https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2020.00597/full

TSA's National Explosives Canine Detection Program,
https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2020/12/09/tsas-national-explosive-detection-canine-program

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