"Unarmed hijack makes mockery of airline security measures after 9/11"

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Unarmed hijack makes mockery of airline security measures after 9/11
BY MARK TREVELYAN
United Kingdom - The Scotsman


SERIOUS concerns were raised in Italy yesterday over the ease with which a
lone, unarmed Turkish man managed to gain access to the cockpit of an
airliner and hijack it. 

All 107 passengers and six crew on the Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 were
unharmed in the hijack, which ended with the arrest at Brindisi airport in
southern Italy late on Tuesday of 27-year-old Hakan Ekinci. 

Turkish media said Ekinci was a Christian convert who wanted to avoid
military service in Turkey and wrote to Pope Benedict several months ago for
help to avoid serving in a "Muslim army". He is understood to be seeking
asylum in Italy. 

The aircraft had been travelling to Istanbul from the Albanian capital
Tirana. 

The incident has raised questions about how an unarmed person could hijack
an aircraft after all the security alerts following the 11 September, 2001
attacks on the United States. 

"The peculiar thing about this hijack was that it was done by a lone,
unarmed man," Giuliano Amato, Italy's interior minister told an emergency
Senate hearing on the incident. 

A Tirana airport video showed Ekinci undergoing repeated security checks and
a body search after a metal detector went off twice. He had to remove his
belt and sweater and empty his pockets before being allowed to board. 

Mursel Gokalp, the pilot of the Turkish Airlines plane, said that Ekinci had
bluffed that he had three accomplices at the rear of the plane who would
detonate plastic explosives unless his demands were met. 

"I obeyed because he gave me the impression his friends were there because
he was often looking to the back of the plane," the captain said. He added
that Ekinci was a burly man who forced his way into the cockpit when a
stewardess opened the door to ask the flight crew if they needed anything. 

"One person with no weapons was able to penetrate the entire security system
of the airplane. What does it say about our airline security?" said Omer
Laviv, an Israeli specialist in aviation security technology. 

He said the episode sent a signal to would-be hijackers: "You don't need
weapons to hijack an aircraft - you don't need anything. This would make
life for hijackers very easy." 

Philip Baum, a consultant who trains flight crews to deal with hijack
scenarios, said airlines should have drills in place to protect the cockpit
when the door is briefly opened - something that is unavoidable, especially
on longer flights, when the pilots need food or to go to the toilet. "What
we teach is ... you pull one of the galley trolleys across the aisle as an
additional barrier before you open the cockpit door, or at the very least
you put another crew member there, looking down the aisle," he said. 

But analysts say some airlines, in practice, become complacent and neglect
the drills. "Cockpit doors swing backwards and forwards, [the cabin crew]
will share a few words with the pilot and then come back out and lock the
door again. In that space of time, anyone can get in there," said Chris
Yates, an aviation security expert at Jane's information group. 

Mr Baum said a potential drawback of the reinforced doors now fitted to
commercial aircraft was that an attacker could close them behind him,
preventing cabin crew from coming to the pilots' rescue and overpowering
him. It was not clear if this was a factor in Tuesday's incident. 

"It's all very well having these doors, but if a hijacker gets into the
cockpit and closes the door behind him, he's actually sealed in there
together with the captain and first officer," Mr Baum said. 

Aviation analysts said airlines have no absolute rules for responding to
hijacks - unlike other emergencies such as engine failure - because each
situation requires a judgment call from the pilot and crew. But the airline
staff have to err on the side of caution. 

"You can't afford to take any chances whatever with a multi-million-dollar
aircraft stuffed full of people at 30-odd thousand feet," Mr Yates said. 

"Your prime duty is the safety of everybody on board that aircraft. As such,
you just have to get it on the ground."

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