Christmas Bomber

It's been two weeks since the attempt to bring down the Northwest flight on approach to Detroit.

As everyone knows, three days after the attempt the President made a public statement to us reassuring us that he was in control and has ordered a complete review of the system and identify what went wrong. Obviously, there was a human and systemic failure that allowed this to happen. Yes, we got lucky. After the attempt Ms. Napolitano stated that the system worked in response to the attempt. Certain groups took her statement out of context and tried to make political points over something she did not actually say.

I have an aviation background and I would like to use a few examples to place this situation in context.

When working in the industry there was a joke, if lawyers designed aircraft, the thing could never get off the ground. As with everything designed and manufactured in the world there are expectations and trade offs. Heavier than air aircraft have been designed and built since the Wright brothers took off from Kitty Hawk. Even with all of our technological advances, aircraft still crash for a variety of reasons. In otherwords, nothing is perfect. We can use technology to increase safety and have done a great job of it, but planes still crash. As time goes by and through the wreckage of those aircraft, improvements are made. The problem is, while we can anticipate the obvious problem areas over the years, there is always something new that comes to light. Aviation is no different than any other industry. The automobile industry does not make a car that does not crash, or a battery that lasts forever or an engine that does not fail. More people die in car crashes than in terrorist attacks, yet there is no outcry to do more about it. Too many variables to consider. Or are there?

Lets jump back to after 9/11. The shoe bomber nearly brought down an aircraft in flight to the US. This individual was arrested, tried and convicted in civil criminal court and is now serving his sentence in the US. One could make the argument that the similarities between the shoe bomber and the Christmas attempt are similar, though eight years apart. The system in place today is there as a result of the 9/11 attack and it would seem logical that the shoe bomber experience would have been addressed. The anti-terror system in place today was designed based upon certain premises, tradeoffs both political and pragmatic. Knowing that the shoe bomber got through should have raised red flags all over the place, yet it appears no one was watching. No system is perfect as originally designed and must experience dynamic change when the threat changes or evolves. If the system is too structured, it won't be an easy task to allowing to evolve as the threat evolves. I am afraid that this may be the case and the President recognises this fact.

Much has been made about the President being slow to react. I disagree. Before you can fix something you have to assess what went wrong and why. The President ordered those in charge to give him a report, full and factual as to what happened and why. This sort of thing cannot happen overnight. The NTSB usually takes at least a year to determine the cause of a single fatal air crash. The President gave his groups a week. In a week, we got to hear what went wrong and what is being done to correct the deficiencies. Remember, the system in place was under the watch of the previous administration and it was that system that failed. The simplest question is after the shoe bomber incident, why did this still happen? Regardless of what we may have known about this person, the fact he was able to bring on board the same type of explosives as the shoe bomber begs the question, what has been done since 12/01 to make sure the explosives were not onboard anyway?

A very large problem is the fact that European countries do not want to use some of the technology available to screen passengers for privacy reasons and in the case of England, illegal because it violates child pornography laws.

First and foremost I do not understand why the US airlines are not held more accountable for security. It would be a simple matter for legislation making it illegal for anyone to board a US bound flight without undergoing US required screening. The airlines, foreign and domestic would have no other choice but to comply because the aircraft would not be allowed to land in the US. Secondly, with the communications networks available how difficult would it be to track the travel path of any individual in real time. Everytime a passport is used to check in and also through Customs a trail is found, if we had real time monitoring. If I buy a Metro ticket in DC, the system knows where and when I got on and where and when I got off at a certain station. This is not new technology. At anytime we could know where an individual is and intercept them. A 2 hour lag in information transfer made it possible for the Christmas bomber to board the the aircraft. had this been done in real time, US Customs would have known immediately where he was when he checked in and stopped him from boarding the aircraft rather than waiting till the flight was in the air.

It has been said that El Al, the Israeli Airline has the best security system in the world. El Al used to be a major terrorist target until took the bull by the horns and since, there have been no more hijackings or terrorist attacks.

Personally, I think we should let the President do his job and do what is necessary to not only fix what went wrong, but also improve the system. I have complete faith in his ability to get things done.