Jean-Cole Aviation Security

 

    Impersonation is an emerging threat in aviation that still happens today. In the past decade there have been cases of people trying to impersonate a pilot. One report explains how a man was arrested for trying to impersonate a pilot. He got passed security but was caught once he boarded the airplane. A boarding agent caught him sitting next to the cockpit of the plane and then called the police. The imposter had fake identification cards which is why he was able to get passed security easily. 

    There was another case of a man impersonating ATC. This person managed to get in the tower and started working but was caught because of a pilot reporting strange behavior from this person. It was never clear with either of these cases what the impersonators main objectives were. It is scary to board a flight and know nothing about your pilots. Their objective could have been to cause harm or death to people by crashing the airplane. With a fake identity a lack of security, it is easy for these people to trick everyone into thinking they are truly pilots or ATC.

     The best layers of security to mitigate these situations are the joint terrorism task force, behavior detection, transportation security officers, and law enforcement officers. Security such as these need to be tighter so that they can detect impersonators. Behavior detection and security officers should be able to observe the actions of others to better determine if these people are really who they say they are. Joint terrorism task force and law enforcement officers should always be ready to take on imposters and with caution. Nobody knows their full intention and it might very well be to do harm to multiple people. The security today is very good because they are required to scan identification cards. There are security officers but I do not see many police officers. The security officers are not as trained to deal with terrorism or impersonators as police officers are. With more police officers and terrorism task force officers at the airports, this threat could be greatly mitigated. 

References

Allen, J. (2018, December 3). Man arrested for Impersonating ATC at Buenos aires airport. The Points Guy. Retrieved September 29, 2021, from https://thepointsguy.com/news/man-arrested-for-impersonating-atc-at-buenos-aires-airport/.

Trejos, N. (2013, March 22). Man arrested for impersonating pilot in Philadelphia. USA Today. Retrieved September 29, 2021, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2013/03/22/philadelphia-impersonate-pilot/2009423/.