In conditions of modern fast-developing world air transport has been one of the most convenient as well as one of the most popular. Nowadays the airspace is full of aircrafts, both commercial and military; people are leaving, departing and transferring without actually imagining the global scope. In fact, such a demand for air flights has made airports one of the most targeted places for mass attacks. Therefore, the airport systems the United States of America has to be perfectly secure. However, some terrorists’ attacks, especially those, which occurred in 2009 and 2010, have proved that even US homeland security system has weaknesses.
How these plots were able to occur
The first attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 occurred right on Christmas of 2009. The International flight from the Netherlands to the USA carried 290 people (279 passengers and 11 crew members), one of which, a Nigerian-Yemen man Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to commit a suicidal explosion in order to destroy the plane. The attack could have had fatal consequences if other passengers and crew members were not as careful. The attack was prevented by small sacrifices: only three men of about three hundred passengers were slightly injured (Abdulmutallab was one of them).
Therefore, there were two main factors, which helped prevent the attack. These were the astuteness of onboard people and assassins’ incompetence. When analyzing the situation carefully, it seems that US homeland had little impact on the catastrophe’s averting. Instead, the flight of American Airlines let the armed person to board. Therefore, the attack, even though successfully prevented, revealed some of definitely impermissible US security weaknesses. The blame was totally on the American security, which was not professional enough to take required actions (which means indicate and resolve the problem before it becomes obvious) (Allen, 2009). Additionally, such a negligence of American homeland security workers could happen because of the on-coming Christmas holidays.
The attack, which is commonly called ‘cargo planes bomb plot’ occurred the next year, in autumn of 2010. Tons of plastic explosives were transported to the USA on cargo aircraft, disguised as cartridges for printers. The USA was the main target; however, the explosives were detected on en route stops in the UK and the UAE.
In fact, the detection of aircraft bombs was not the success of the USA security system either. The information about the on-going attack was reported by Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Interior Minister in charge of Counter-terrorism actions (Mazetti & Worth, 2016). The Saudi Arabia’s security chief, roughly speaking, has made American homeland security system’s work. He reported all the flight numbers, their destinations and the way the explosives were disguised. This attack only supported and approved the fact, that the identification of threats is one of the gravest failures of American homeland security.
Components of homeland security responsible for the defending
It needs no evidence that Transportation Security Organization is the agency of the US Homeland Security, which is fully responsible for such attacks. Transportation Security Organization (TSA) is responsible for everything, connected to transportation and its safety (Transportation Security Administration, 2014). In terms of such a mission, TSA had to react before the attack of 2009 happened. The employees of TSA with the employees of the airport ignored the dangerous man. The official version is a human factor; people could be tired after their shift; it was Christmas. However, one more reason employees’ could prevent an attack was their incompetence. In these terms, the work of TSA was done improperly, as their employees did not act as they had to.
There also exists the National Terrorism Advisory System. Its main aim is to detect and prevent the attacks even before they get to the USA (Dhs.gov, 2016). In the second case, the work was done not by the National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS), but by Saudi Arabia’s inner company. The work of NTAS can be called unprofessional and vulnerable; their ignorance towards on-coming attacks has been a threat as well as the attack itself.
Actions to prevent these situations in the future
Both of the situations highlighted the weaknesses of US homeland department. Therefore, a lot of action was done soon. The actions taken were the growing of a number of machinery and personnel. Besides, the new rules determine the proper behavior with hand-carriage and made more strict inspections. As Morgenstern and Falk (2009) stated, “In subsequent attempts to use airliners, explosives were smuggled aboard; or, in some cases, tests of security on airliners involved a dozen or more potential hijackers” (Morgenstern & Falk, 2009). After the attack of 2010, people have started to pay attention to cargo ships. In different European countries the flights from Saudi Arabia and Asian countries were rejected; on almost every aircraft there occurred bigger inspection.
The reaction to these two situations was immediate. However, these things were done to develop the procedure, but not change the meaning of the process. To prevent such threats in the future, US Homeland needs to revolutionize the idea it follows. If the effect is growing due to the growing amount of equipment and power, it is called an extensive way of development. Nowadays it is hard to find the field, where this method was successful. Instead of it, intensive development has the aim to make the process evolve.
In these terms, US homeland ought to develop old policies before implementing new ones. Besides, the organization needs to think over the idea of special training for its employees. However, the best idea is to separate all the employees into different groups, which will scan the situation and try to detect the danger of different levels (for example, behavior analysis crew, etc.). For the best operation of US homeland security system, the program of human development is the most useful, as it makes people as intelligent as the computers are. At the same time, it leaves some humanity and intuition, which is unavailable to machinery and all the equipment.
References
Allen, N. (2009). Barack Obama admits 'unacceptable systemic failure' in Detroit plane attack. Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 22 February 2016, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/6908709/Barack-Obama-admits-unacceptable-systemic-failure-in-Detroit-plane-attack.html
Dhs.gov,. (2016). NTAS | Homeland Security. Retrieved 22 February 2016, from https://www.dhs.gov/topic/ntas
Mazetti, M., & Worth, R. (2016). U.S. Sees Complexity of Bombs as Link to Al Qaeda.Nytimes.com. Retrieved 22 February 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/world/31terror.html
Morgenstern, H., & Falk, O. (2009). Suicide terror. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Transportation Security Administration,. (2014). Mission. Retrieved 22 February 2016, from https://www.tsa.gov/about/tsa-mission
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