"Goal: to improve airport security"

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Goal: to improve airport security 
By Peyton Whitely
The Seattle (WA) Times


ARLINGTON - For anyone accustomed to the high-security regulations at major
airports, Arlington Airport presents a far different kind of situation. 

But that's going to change under an airport risk-management program approved
by the Arlington City Council last week and developed in conjunction with
other agencies, including the federal Transportation Security
Administration. 

The plan covers a half-dozen security issues, including access control and
police activities, and lays out steps expected to take through 2008 to put
in place at Snohomish County's second-largest airport. 

Rob Putnam, the airport manager, said the plan is intended to help correct
basic deficiencies. 

"Currently, the airport is mostly wide open with very little fencing in
place," the plan notes. 

Putnam recalled an instance when an elderly couple once drove their car on a
taxiway to reach the airport office and ask directions to downtown
Arlington. 

To guard against such events, the plan calls for increased fencing and
electric gates. There are just three gates that restrict access to the
flight line now, and only one is electrically operated, the plan notes. 

The plan also calls for adding a police officer to airport duty, a concept
first discussed last year. It is expected to be about six months before an
officer is added, Putnam said. 

Security cameras will be added, an improvement that could provide a
secondary benefit: tracking airport use. 
 
Although there are about 500 general-aviation planes based at Arlington
Airport, no one is sure how many takeoffs and landings take place there. The
airport has no control tower, and no records are kept of flight operations. 

"I've been looking for a device for years that would count the number of
operations we have in a year," Putnam said. 

Techniques such as using traffic counters commonly used on highways to count
cars don't work well on airports. Planes land and take off in different
areas of the runways, and the air-actuated counters wouldn't be able to
differentiate between touch-and-go practice landings by one plane and
individual flights by separate planes, for example. 

Now it looks like the most feasible approach might be to use a system of
five cameras, with two on each runway and one at an area for ultralight
aircraft, coordinating with a computer that could handle up to 16 cameras,
Putnam said. 

That system would allow a police officer, for example, to view the images on
the Internet and allow the airport staff members to use the tape to count
takeoffs and landings, he said. 

The plan is structured over five years, with various amounts specified
annually. The 2004 budget totals $142,500, including $15,000 for a security
camera system and $27,500 for gate improvements. The biggest item is
$100,000 for an airport police-resource officer, which includes the cost of
a vehicle. 

The amounts are expected to drop to $83,670 in 2005 and $60,378 in 2006,
then go to $203,250 in 2007, with a provision for adding a second officer,
and fall to $189,920 in 2008.


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