As long as the travel has become a non-disabilities in connection with the pandemic, thousands and thousands of people were held through airports every day. These are almost the ideal conditions for committing a terrorist attack, because in one place a large number of people are going. In the same way, the high concentration of people on large airliners increases the potentially high mortality rate when attacking aircraft, and the ability to use a sobbed aircraft as a deadly weapon can be a tempting goal for criminals. That is why safety control at airports is so strict. But it was not always so, and we will tell you about how security in places of mass accumulation of people planning to go to the flight.
Origins of the problem
In the period from May 1961, at the end of 1972, 159 aircraft treatments were made in the United States airspace. This period is often called the golden age of the hijacking of aircraft. Soon after the Cuban revolution of 1959, the hijackers began to demand that pilots captured aircraft flew into Cuba, that only 1518 miles from the coast of the United States. Most of them believed that they would meet as the heroes of the revolution, Fidel Castro will take them under their defense, and there will be no punishment.
Requests have become so frequent that the phrase "take me to Cuba!" Flushed in Monti Paiton's sketches. But Fidel was not in a hurry to take fugitives, and seeing the opportunity to humiliate the US government, offered to return airline aircraft for 7,500 dollars.
What to do?
The US government decided that it was time to decide something, because the situation began to look comical. There was even an idea to build a fake version of Havana Airport in South Florida, so that the stolen planes landed there. But the project was too expensive, plus the hijackers could not be completely stupid and distinguished by Cuba from the United States.
The idea for a more successful plan was borrowed from the American military and prison system. Its essence was to use metal detectors or X-ray devices for inspection of all passengers. These relatively new technologies have already been successfully used in several strict regime prisons and on secret military facilities. But the Federal Aviation Department (FAA) rejected the idea, since, in their opinion, such measures would have had a poor psychological impact on passengers.
The first measures taken
First, the airline was decided that it would be correct to comply with all the demands of hijackers to minimize violence after the seizure of aircraft. The goal was to make the hijacking as quickly and painless and painless, but there was no positive effect.
The FAA then decided to turn to an alternative idea - evaluating behavior and human appearance. Psychologists began to rank passengers based on characteristics such as growth, inability to maintain visual contact, as well as anxiety about their baggage. When a person behaved strangely, he was accompanied into a separate room for inspection and checked with a metal detector.
This method seems not very reliable, but in vain. In 1986 it was possible to calculate the "live bomb" of Mary-Ann Murphy, who carried the explosives on board. The girl did not fit the stereotypical breakdown of terrorists. But a young white pregnant Ireland-Catholic was a little jumped, answering the question about the baggage and the security service was able to recognize the threat.
Interestingly, the passengers themselves supported such measures and rarely objected to an additional check. When they were later polled, the majority responded that they were simply happy to find out that she was finally done to prevent hijacking. However, over time, attention to the details weakened, and this measure as the only source of security was not enough.
Tightening the inspection system
It was necessary to come up with a more effective decision, and then everyone was remembered about the option with a metal detector and an X-ray apparatus. On July 17, 1970, the International Airport of New Orleans in Louisiana became the first airport that began using magnetometers to detect weapons or metal objects along with the usual check of passengers.
From January 5, 1973, universal inspection of passengers was introduced, and each had to go through metal detectors, as well as provide a bag for inspection. Later, a year later came out the appropriate law on air transport security. The hijacking of the aircraft became much more risky than 50 years ago. Safety measures significantly reduced the number of such crimes, but, alas, did not completely eliminate the risk.
Further "twisting of nuts"
After a terrible tragedy over Lockerby in 1988, when the terrorist attack fell 270 people, special attention began to be paid to the luggage of passengers. The fact is that the bomb in the Boeing 747 fallen over Scotland was in the baggage, which passed through X-ray! But the criminal negligence and inattention of security services led to the tragedy.
After the terrorist attack on September 11, the politics of closed doors in the cockpit of pilots began to be actively carried out, and the ban on sharp items in hand-made bare was also tightened. And even later, after an unsuccessful attempt to undermine the aircraft with a liquid explosive, restrictions on the fluid wire in the cabin were introduced.
Control bodies are much easier to prohibit everything that even hypothetically may be dangerous than spending a lot of time on a thorough check of everything and everything. Airlines can also be understood, especially since in addition to security, they seek to reduce the queues and the time of passing all checks.
There is always an acute issue of saving the balance between compliance with security measures and inconveniences for travelers and the preservation of their private life. Often, people are forced to sit for hours in waiting rooms in the hope that they will be entered into the country, or observe how they grow in their personal things. A very humiliating procedure, but in such a situation there is almost nothing. It is especially disappointed that all these actions are presented as necessary security measures. But we all need to put up with what is happening, because it is total control that makes aircraft the safest mode of transport in the world.