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Onboard anti-hijacking measures of limited effectiveness, say analysts

By Jefferson Morris

Onboard security systems provide only limited effectiveness against knowledgeable hijackers such as those who apparently perpetrated the Sept. 11 attacks, and cannot substitute for proper security on the ground, say aviation and security analysts.

"There's not a whole lot of technology on the aircraft itself [for thwarting hijackers]," Dr. Dale Oderman, assistant professor of aviation technology at Purdue University and a retired Air Force colonel, told The DAILY.

One of the standard approaches uses the aircraft's transponder - an electronic device that provides air traffic controllers with information on aircraft status - to send a special code indicating that a plane has been hijacked.

However, this contingency can only be executed surreptitiously "as long as the people who are hijacking have no idea what a transponder is," said Oderman. "If you have people that have flying training background, and they're familiar with it, they'll immediately know what it is." This was apparently the case aboard at least two of the planes that were hijacked Sept. 11. The transponder aboard the United Airlines 757 was turned off, while one aboard another plane was tampered with. Transponders are not the only method of alerting the ground to a crisis, however.

"There are other ways to be able to notify ATC that an airplane is being hijacked," said Charlie LeBlanc, managing director of Air Security. LeBlanc wouldn't offer details on the systems, although he said "one of the pilots did try to use a secondary means of communication, and it just wasn't picked up upon at the time."

Lock down

One rather low-tech approach to onboard security would simply be to keep the cockpit door locked, according to John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org. "Back in the 70s, when concerns about domestic hijacking were quite real, it was just standard procedure that the cockpit door was always locked, and the passengers never saw the flight crew," said Pike. Now, however, "I think that these guys could have gotten on the airplane with a reasonably good assumption that they were going to find the cockpit open," he said.

However, as currently constructed, even a locked cockpit door would do little to thwart determined hijackers, according to Oderman. "I'm six foot, 170 pounds or so, and I could knock my way through the lock," he said. "It's like the door in the restrooms - a little bit of privacy, but if people wanted to get through it, they could get through."

Although the doors themselves could be made stronger, ironically, safety concerns have so far prevented this, Oderman said. "If an airplane crashes on landing, and it incapacitates the pilots, yet they're still alive, rescue crews would want to get up in the cockpit to get those pilots out of there," he said. Oderman said there have been numerous incidents such as this, in which flight crews have been more easily rescued because of the relative flimsiness of the door.

Men with guns

"The question is, are we going to have to give guns to pilots?" said Randy Larsen, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security. Larsen said some consideration might be given to reinstating the sky marshals program, although perhaps with non-lethal weapons. "There might be something that has to get installed on airplanes that can be used to immobilize people," Larsen said. If an airplane has to have a sky marshal, "I'd much rather he has a stun gun."

According to Oderman, however, "they don't have anywhere near the manning they'd have to have to put somebody on even a high percentage of flights, much less all of them." LeBlanc also expressed skepticism over the idea.

"I guess we can start [them on] transcontinental flights, but to me, once the word gets out ... that sky marshals are going to be on all Boston to L.A. flights, then terrorists will start trying to hijack planes [on other routes]."

Ultimately, everyone agrees that an ounce of prevention on the ground is worth a pound of cure in the air. "It's security," said Pike. "Airline security, airport security. It looks like [this tragedy resulted from] problems with screening passengers before they get on the plane." LeBlanc agreed. "The onboard security stuff is of concern here, but once the hijacker gets to the airplane, you've lost half the battle."