A Brave Attempt at Common Sense

[J.O.]

With best regards from Flight Training News.

Ban the flightdeck - Lembit Öpik (UK Member of Parliament)

“In view of the present threat it would appear that the flight deck should not be allowed on the aircraft. The plane does not fly and everyone is safe. That is until a catering truck runs into it.” These are the words of a commercial pilot, expressing his feelings about the uncompromising new security rules imposed at Britain’s airports on 10th August this year. These rules were announced hours after claims that a plot for the destruction of around 10 civilian airliners scheduled to take-off from British airports loaded with passengers, fuel and crew, had been prevented. The news has widely covered the consequences on civilian air travel. The searching, checking and re-checking of people, possessions and baggage caused the cancellation of 30% of journeys. Hundreds of thousands of passengers waited for hours, many even for days, as flights failed to take-off, or departed with only a tiny number of passengers. Fare paying passengers were consigned to tents and over-crowded terminal buildings in scenes reminiscent of refugees fleeing a war zone.

Those lucky enough to get on the planes couldn’t take on normal hand baggage; only what they were permitted to carry in demeaning see through plastic bags. Whether or not there WAS a terrorist plot – and at time of writing (August 14th 2006) this is far from clear – there’s no doubt the threat of terrorism partially paralysed our airways by the resulting security measures. Now here’s the crazy bit. Initially, these same regulations were applied to the aircrew. Almost everything imposed on passengers was also imposed on the people who were flying them. That’s right. The folks on the flight deck were being barred from carrying anything from their laptops to beverages, food, even their car immobilisers. One pilot has observed: “All my notes are on my laptop and my PDA. No paper manuals anymore! What about torches for walk-arounds? Hearing protection? The yellow – “don’t hit me” – jacket? The TWO pairs of glasses? Pens? Wizz-wheel? Calculators? All needed…” but mainly banned, unless the flight crew were willing to negotiate, in the hope that the security staff would see sense.

Think about it. In August 2006, anyone in the UK getting on a plane was being treated as if they might be a terrorist, regardless of their role, their credentials and whether they were just along for the ride or actually flying the plane! I’m sure you’ve already seen the flaw in this. To quote another aircrew professional: “If the crew wanted to do some serious injury I seem to remember (they made a film about this, unless that is outlawed now) that pointing the nose at the ground and trying to break the sound barrier makes a big hole.” Yup. You don’t need a torch to torch the aircraft, an inescapable fact which makes the restrictions on aircrew relatively absurd. The pilots weren’t being allowed to take their car immobiliser on board in case they used it to commit an act of terrorism, but were trusted with the lives of 500 people seven miles up at 550 mph with nobody to check up on them.

What happens next? Well, hopefully common sense prevails, with a continuing reduction of the rules imposed on aircrew. But even though this now appears to be happening, but there’s no guarantee that this indicates a more measured approach will be taken again in the future. Also, there’s a real danger that those of us who fly the small stuff may end up attracting the same attentions as the big jets. I mean, why think the security crackdown will stop in the big cockpits? Surely the small ones are a risk as well? It’s easy to see such “mission creep” thinking invading all aspects of aviation, until we spend more time proving we’re not intending to do something stupid than we do proving we can fly safely in the first place. They’re already talking about giving would-be pilots mental tests to see if a terrorist lurks inside.

Now think this through, and be blunt about this. What’s more dangerous - a runaway Piper Cherokee or a runaway train? A crashing Cessna 150, or a crashing bus? A crazed microlight pilot, or a crazy ship’s captain? The unavoidable logic of the ever-tightening noose of security leads directly and quickly into a police state where we have to prove our mental credentials before we are allowed to do anything which could be used to harm anyone else. And that doesn’t leave a lot, does it? Certainly, anyone who buys fertiliser should be checked out – they might not growing turnips – they might be building a bomb. And how about that chap who’s just bought a gallon of petrol in a can? Refilling his lawn mower… or preparing Molotov cocktails in the garden shed? And hey, the local radio control aircraft modellers could easily be constructing a miniature squadron to flower bomb the local traffic warden. Even in the darkest days of the Cold War between America and Russia, such paranoia didn’t persistently invade the everyday lives of people in the West. What has happened – though for understandable reasons, it must be said - is a very real compromising of our civil liberties. That’s because politicians have used only one defence against terrorism: attempting to prevent the opportunity to terrorise. But to guarantee no more air terrorism using this route, you really would have to ban the flightdeck.

The answer is not to abandon airport security measures. The answer lies in risk management. Proportionate response. Informed decision-making. Manageable measures which balance the risk and the cost. Risk management, not risk elimination, is the sensible approach. For example, flight crew should to be allowed to do the job they’ve spent years training for. Decision-makers should apply different regs to pilots. Light aviation must not be singled out simply because they’re up in the sky.

And there’s another thing. The strategy itself. How on earth can the Government seriously believe that, simply by trying to apprehend the terrorists, they’ll remove the underlying terrorist threat? The lessons in Northern Ireland showed that defusing the motives of terrorism largely delivered more progress than 30 years of counter-terrorism did on its own. Both elements were important, but with international terrorism, Ministers are only concerned with checking everyone who gets on a plane rather than figuring out why some people board for the wrong reasons. Dissolving motives is not giving in to terrorists, but offers a way to truly reduce the chance of an attack in the first place. I know Ministers read Flight Training News. So, here’s a direct appeal to you. Please, before “next time,” keep talking to aircrew, who take life and death decisions in the flightdeck throughout their working lives. Make realistic plans with airports and airlines NOW, not during the next alleged plot, when the temptation for knee-jerk over-reaction is obviously greater.

Long term, the solution isn’t found in turning Heathrow into an overcrowded shanty town of frustrated travellers, let alone extending that to the smaller airfields of Britain. It needs to be much more sophisticated than that. Sure, it’s scary to manage risk, but politics IS hard, and the challenge is having proportionate responses, before managing public expectations regarding risk. And for goodness sake, look at the motives of the terrorists, not at every pilot and passenger as if they have motives to terrorise. Another professional sums it up: “those of us who fly long haul will not be allowed to take anything such as shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant etc. We will not be allowed to take our car keys if they have electronic fobs. The obvious anomaly in all this is that once we have left those things behinds, we are then given control of a multi million dollar potential weapon of mass destruction and trusted to keep it secure and operate it safely.”

No pilot – professional, non-professional or student – is more likely to do evil just because they’ve got a flying bag in the cockpit. So, before Government again acts in haste, tell us either why banning pilot bags in cockpits and extra searches on aircrew is vital, or be a bit smarter in a crisis and preserve their freedom to do their job.

I like this guy. Too bad that our collective government risk managers don't think like him.