Air Cargo
Screening:
assessing the feasibility
The December 1988 destruction of Pan Am flight 103 o the security professional, risk
engendered the resolve to develop the technology to
screen checked baggage for even artfully concealed
improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Six years later the
T
is proportional to the product of
the likelihood of an event and
its consequences. Historically,
terrorist acts against civil
aviation, while infrequent, have
first explosives detection system (EDS) was certified.
occurred with some regularity, and the
Whilst the contents of checked bags is both unknown and
consequences of these acts have been
catastrophic - to the individuals affected, to
diverse, their limited range of sizes has made screening
the aviation industry, and to the society as a
possible. By comparison, although the contents of cargo
whole. Consequently, the terrorist risk to civil
aviation is generally viewed as high,
shipments, at least in theory, must be declared, the
warranting considerable expenditures in
complexity of the air cargo system, the range of shipment
countermeasures. To the individual business
involved in civil aviation, however, the costs
sizes, and the diversity of the goods being shipped have
of counterterrorism (both direct and indirect)
generally been regarded as impossible barriers to
are often viewed as unacceptable. In the
screening. But with the increased terrorist threat and the
pre-9/11 world implementing almost any of
the measures currently applied to
vulnerability of air cargo discussed openly in the media,
passengers would have been unthinkable. It
the impossible is now required. Fred Roder looks at some
was argued that people would eschew air
travel for trains or cars, or avoid travel
of the issues, initiatives and pilot programmes being altogether, rather than submit to the
effected in the United States that may pave the way for air
indignities and invasions of privacy that are
today’s security regime. History has proven
cargo screening in the not too distant future. this view to be wrong.
8 December 2007 Aviationsecurityinternational
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