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Aviation History
1989
1989 - 0164.PDF
COMMERCIAL FLIGHT SAFETY. Arabian Gulf forces shot down, by mistake, an Iran Air Airbus Industrie A300, killing all 290 people on board. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned by comparing this event with that in August 1983, when Soviet fight ers shot down a Korean Air Lines passenger 747 en route from Anchorage to Seoul, kill ing 260 people. Both were scheduled flights operating to schedule. The Airbus A300 was flying correctly to track on a little-used airway (in fact this daily operation was the only scheduled flight which used it), while the Korean aircraft had strayed off track into Russian airspace. The USS Vincennes, which shot the Iran Air aircraft down, was actually under attack by Iranian gunboats at the time that the A300 climbed out of Bandar Abbas and appeared on the ship's radar screens, whereas there was no nearby conflict of any kind in progress when the Sukhoi "Flagons" shot down the Korean aircraft. The subsequent actions of the perpetrator nations were characteristic of their govern ments at the time. The Soviet Government initially pretended the event had not happened, and then accused the Koreans of having deployed the aircraft in a military reconnaissance role, and claimed that the shooting down was justifiable. In the Arabian Gulf incident the American Government instantly and quite publicly investigated the A300 shoot-down. Within 24hr they had confirmed that it had been carried out by their ship, and disclosed the circumstances as they became known. The American Government then expressed its apologies, voicing the excuse that the ship was in combat at the time, and saying that the captain's tragic mistake was therefore understandable. Both the Korean and Iranian airline shoot- downs were basically the result of poor communications. Neither military unit—the Vincennes nor the Flagon's base—was listen ing out on the normal civil airline frequencies for the region (nor, alternatively, did it have direct contact with the air traffic control units which were listening). Had they been listening, they could quite possibly have identified the radar contacts in question without even needing to call them. Fighting terrorism Terrorists have scored their grisly successes this year as they did the last. There is an argument that political unrest and resulting terrorist activity are a fact of life, but that the way in which terrorists choose to operate can be influenced. Assuming that the prime objective of the terrorist is to draw attention to his cause while striking a blow against a perceived adversary, and that the air trans port industry itself is not the target, perhaps the industry could raise security levels to a point where these paramilitary criminals choose another area in which to make their point. It is not realistic to talk about total security. Civil airport security could never beat the determined professional terrorist every time while the airports continue to operate as effi cient civilian operations. Only by operating as military bases at a high state of alert could civil airports guarantee to provide virtual 100 per cent protection against hijackers and bombers. If the airports were to adopt that strategy, then, in a curious way, the terrorists would have won. However, it is not feasible, so it will not be done. Unless passengers could see a clear, imme diate, and continuing reason for the consid erable time sacrificed in luggage and body searches, they probably would not tolerate the indignity and inconvenience, the rigidly enforced luggage regulations, and the expense which would show up in security charges or dearer tickets. Airports do not have the resources—and could not raise them overnight—to enforce military levels of security. Their buildings were often not designed with security in mind at all, let alone high levels of security. So the problem is a major one, but it is not just a problem of providing the security. Who decides what level of security should be provided? Military bases always have states of alert, and the standards which go with those states of alert are defined. There seems to be no definition of the standards of security which are to be provided at airports any where. Where state-of-alert systems exist they are often poorly defined. Communications question Even in the more sophisticated nations, it is not clear whether airport communications with government intelligence agencies, the police, and international agencies such as Interpol are as sharp as they should be—if they exist at all in a formal sense. So if airport security services do not have an accurate and up-to-date supply of intelligence on terrorist or other criminal threats, on what do they base the standard of security which they set at any given time? Military bases do not attempt to maintain high states of alert at all times because it is not efficient, and is a drain on emotions and resources. Civil airports, therefore, cannot be expected to do so either. The threats need to be identified by the intelligence agencies in co-operation with the airports and airlines, and then the targets need to be identified. It is rarely an airport which is a target: it is an airline, a nation's airlines, airlines bound for a certain destination, politicians, or influen tial people. One total airport security matter which needs more attention is the security vetting of those airport employees, or employees of contractors, who have access to the "airside", and even to aircraft themselves. It is not enough to decide that a person is a genuine employee of (for example) an airline catering company in order to issue an airside identification card / security pass, yet that is about the extent of the security vetting in most cases. The whole matter of access to airside, including physical access via terminals. Airport and airline security may be in high press profile currently because of Lockerbie, but Lockerbie has eclipsed the previously high-profile subject of air traffic control congestion in Europe and the USA. A UK parliamentary committee which is still examining air traffic safety over the UK and Europe has found itself doing a major study of the inadequacy of plans for the air traffic control and airports infrastructure. So far the evidence presented does not seem to have persuaded the committee members that the ATC system is other than basically safe, even if the safety has to be achieved by limiting the flow of air traffic, but the report is likely to outline areas where organisational and infrastructure improve ments could be made. Examination of the accidents and incidents for 1988 will reveal the interesting fact that none of them was caused by ATC error. Accident data have been gathered from Flight's own sources and from the UK Civil Aviation Authority's World Airline Accident Summary. We have received some criticism of our policy of publishing the non-fatal inci dents we learn about, because information on this kind of incident is not normally available in many parts of the world, but we intend to continue to publish them because airlines tell us there is much to be learned from those relatively few that we publish. We accept that our incidents list is weighted unfairly against British and US airlines because news of their problems is more readily accessible. This CAAC Trident made a low approach to Hong Kong in heavy rain, then slid off the runway into the harbour surrounding it 50 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 21 January 1989
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