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Aviation History
2004
2004-00 - 0005.PDF
ULL LIST OF READER SERVICES ADVERTISER CONTACTS - P41 EDITORIAL +44 (20) 8652 3842 Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, UK Fax +44 (20) 8652 3840 email fHghtMernationaltSrbi.co.uk Editor Murdo Morrison +44 (20) 8652 4395 murdo.morrison@rbi.co.uk Editorial Assistant Andrew Costerton +44 (20) 8652 3835 andrew.costerton@rbi.co.uk News Editor Andrew Doyle +44 (20) 8652 3096 andrevt.doyle@rbi.co.uk Commercial Aviation Editor Max Kingsiey-Jones +44 (20) 8652 3825 max.kingsley.jones@rbi.co.uk Defence Aviation Editor Craig Moyle +44 (20) 8652 3834 craig.hoyie@rbi.co.uk Operations/Safety Editor David Learmount +44 (20) 8652 3845 david.learmount@rbi.co.uk Business Editor Alexander Campbell +44 (20) 8652 3990 alexander.campbell@rbi.co.uk Business & General Aviation Editor Kate Sarstield +44 (20) 8652 3885 kate.sarsfield@rbi.co.uk Senior Reporter Justin Wastnage +44 (20) 8652 3863 justin.wastnage@rbi.co.uk Spaceflight Correspondent Tim Furniss +44 (1237) 471960 tim@spaceport.co.uk Senior Technical Artist Giuseppe Picarella +44 (20) 8652 e05Ajoe.picarella@rbi.co.uk Editorial Artist Tim Brown +44 (20) 8652 8043 tim.brown@rbi.co.uk EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST European Editor Christina Mackenzie +33 (1) 64 23 68 89 christina.mackenzie@rbi.co.uk Israel Correspondent Arie Egozi +972 (3) 9413132 Middle East Correspondent Gerald Butt AMERICAS Washington DC Office Fax +1 (703) 836 8344 Americas Editor Graham Warwick +1 (703) 836 3448 grabam.warwick@rbi.co.uk East Coast Editor Stephen Trimble +1 (703) 836 3084 stephen.trimble@rbi.co.uk West Coast Editor Guy Norris +1(949)252 8971 Fax+1 (949) 252 8972 guy.norris@rbi.co.uk Brazil Correspondent Jackson Flores Jr +55 212439-6062 Fax +55 212349-6090 fubar@uol.com.br Canada Correspondent Brian Dunn ASIA/PACIFIC Singapore Office Fax +65 6789 7575 Regional Managing Editor Nicholas lonides +65 6780 4311 nicholas.ionides@rbi.co.uk Deputy Asia Editor Brendan Sobie +65 6780 4309 brendan.sobie@rbi.co.uk Regional Reporter Leithen Francis +65 6780 4314 leithen.francis@rbi.co.uk Australia Civil Aviation Correspondent Emma Kelly +61 (8) 9454 4987 emmajkelly@bigpond.com Associate Editor (Defence) Peter La Franchi •61419246 620 Fax+61 (2) 62312795 nulka@ozemail.com.au EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Group Production Editor Graeme Osborn +44 (20) 8652 3828 Group Art Editor James Mason +44 (20) 8652 4994 Chief Sub-Editor Chris Thornton +44 (20) 8652 4997 Deputy Production Editor Jackie Thompson+44 (20) 8652 3850 Sub Editor Megan Turner +44 (20) 8652 3848 Photographer Mark Wagner +44 (20) 8944 5225 WWW.FLIGHTINTERNATIONAL.COM Webmaster Sheena Buchanan +44 (20) 8652 4432 SUBSCRIPTIONS +44 (1444) 445454 rbi.subscriptions@rbi.co.uk THE FLIGHT COLLECTION him.hearn@rbi.co.uk © and Database Rights 2004 Reed Business Information Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publishers _f-\ I J online service at www.rati.com, contains the full text of Flight BIII III International and Airline Business since 1996. Full text of the magazines can also be found online with Lexis-Nexis, Dialogue, FT Profile, IAC and Reuters. Editor Kieran Daly +44 (20) 8652 3837 Reed Business Information COMMENT Trust and vigilance The USA has raised its threat advisory level in response to intelligence. Now it has to keep allies and its own security services on its side JJ The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on 21 December that it was raising the threat advisory level from Code Yellow to Code Orange because incoming intelligence indicated a terrorist intention to attack the USA. But a permanently high security-alertness state becomes devalued if it becomes the norm. Although security systems use high technology, they still depend on human vigi lance, so any loss of belief in the system results in a lowering of vigilance. The only justi fication for keeping a security state high is if the system can bear out intelligence by showing results. These can come in the form of would- be terrorists or hijackers captured or weapons detected at security checkpoints. But the most difficult result to demonstrate is successful deterrence, because the only way it can nor mally be proven is by revealing intelligence information, which jeopardises sources. The trouble with what if" games is that neither side can convince the other Meanwhile at the frontline, if nothing ever hap pens, the ordinary security operative believes there is no threat and vigilance naturally drops. And DHS secretary Tom Ridge said, when he raised the threat advisory level, that this was a reaction to "the possibility of attacks on the homeland around the holiday season and beyond". He could not afford to say how long "beyond" would be, even if he knew. All the hyped press interest in security arrangements over the "holiday season" was driven partly by the fact that there is always a dearth of news around this time, but although Ridge had given a generalised warning about "attacks against the homeland", nearly all the concentration was on aviation security. Little new had been announced. Sky marshals are not a new invention. Australia, Canada and Germany had a programme for putting security forces on aircraft before the US sky marshal programme was launched, and the UK announced in December 2002 that it already had trained police on permanent standby to perform that duty. The only real news following from the DHS announcement was the upping of the alert state, and the request - for the first time - by the USA to other nations to put armed sky mar shals on specific flights to the USA that are identified by intelligence sources as being under particular threat. This request was uni versally met by the other nations concerned telling the USA that it would have to convince them that the threat was real and specific before they would adopt measures they might not normally use. That sounds fair enough. If it wants allies in a fight against terrorism, the USA has to invest trust in them or risk causing alienation. The USA's ultimate weapon if it does not get co-operation is, of course, to ban incoming flights by a particular airline or from a particular country, but that does not win allies. There is a cultural problem in requesting the use of guns on foreign aircraft, as in every thing the USA touches outside its own homeland. Americans have the right to bear arms enshrined in their constitution, and even if they do not like guns they are accustomed to seeing them used in law enforcement. The UK's main pilot union speaks for almost all non-US pilots in not wanting guns on board aircraft, even in the hands of security person nel, whereas when polled on the subject US pilots voted 75% in favour of being armed themselves in addition to having armed sky marshals on board. Both pilot groups' positions exemplify differ ent versions of a "worst case scenario", which can be reached by following different directions in a "what if" reasoning process. The US pilots argue "what if" a group of well-organised ter rorists got firearms on an aircraft and managed to storm the reinforced cockpit during meal ser vice to the crew. At least the pilots would be able to kill them. That assumes that terrorist firearms would get through security, that storm ing the cockpit would work, and that the pilots would win the cockpit shoot-out. The non-US pilots argue "what if" a group of well-organised but unarmed terrorists got on board without any security hitches by obeying the security rules, knowing they would have access to a firearm if they could identify the sky marshal. The trouble with "what if" games is that neither side will ever convince the other. If the USA is to get the world on its side in its fight against fundamentalist terrorism, it is not enough to point out the bad guy and lead the fight against him, because no-one will follow unless they are won over by being trusted. Meanwhile, if the USA is to keep its own secu rity workforce effective it must not maintain high levels of security vigilance any longer than they are genuinely warranted. SEE HEADLINES P5 www.flightinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 6-12 JANUARY 2004 3
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