New and Emerging Threats...to Aviation

I was thinking for some time to write about the "new and emerging threats" to civil aviation worldwide, we think if the current threats range from hijacking,attacks on the airports and a possibility of a bomb attack..well think think again....as time changed the terrorist has evolved with it and has refined his tactics, gone are the day's of the Red brigade,Red army...etc...today terrorist is highly educated (as you all are very well aware) highly motivated and has the capacity to out think his opponent.

There are two future threats for which we have to be prepared in the civil aviation sector.

• Threats from Cargo and non commercial airlines ( the small aircraft's/cargo freighter's).
• A threat which we can define as "Cyber warfare".

I am not going to be advocate here who will define what is good or bad,if you see i am also dependent on a technology which is driving most of this world. There must be more than a billion people connected to this invisible information highway and so is "HE".

The age of the "Key board warrior" has come and who else to feel the punch than the US govt, recently there systems were hacked by the Chinese army.

One of the greatest Masters of warfare who's book is used as a bible today for most of the armies of the world "Sun Tzu" said and i quote...


" Hit your enemy where it hurts him most and to win a war with dead bodies to count is not winning,but to win a war with out dead bodies is a true win"

so we come to this point again how will all this effect the civil aviation?

Did you all see Die Hard film? did you notice how the ATC was taken over , well that's not a far off thought in a time like this.

Most of the ticketing software works online (using the web) if some one wants an airline to stop working for a day he just needs to get in it and Voila that the end of every thing for that day NO FLIGHTs.

The regulatory bodies have to very seriously think how to safe guard the civil aviation against this unlawful threat. No pun intended but the ICONS of the regulatory body don't have the time for this.

In all my years in the Aviation Security i have learned that you have to be two steps ahead of the alleged terrorist however that man is 5 steps ahead of you and the living example of that was 9/11 who could have imagined that some one would use an aircraft as a missile.


too be continued.......