JamesBigglesworth

I have a brilliant idea and it's all mine and I demand royalties on this utterly unnecessary idea of mine that is a much better mousetrap solution looking for a problem mouse:

Have a switch in the cockpit that electrifies the cockpit door.

That'll keep Evil Doers (tm) out!!

Ghods, I'm brilliant!

TWA884

Folks,

Please keep in mind this forum's guidelines when posting here.

You can read those in the sticky thread Please Read: Important Information.

Gross derisive generalizations of federal air marshals, TSA screeners, police and military personnel will not be tolerated.

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TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator

phltraveler

I agree. The first post I understand, because it's suggesting that FAMs are security theater and of little practical benefit. Mr. Maclean is selling a solution (the mobile secondary cockpit barrier system) that can apparently be retrofitted. Whether or not that solution is of real practical value vs. the current FA + drink cart blocking method is being debated here.

The second post is just that air marshalls are tired and prone to drug/alcohol abuse, which could make them more of a danger and an active threat to pax (which is I guess why he excerpted about the part where an air marshall hallucinated and started firing at people that weren't actually there).

In related news (to secondary barriers...)

The house passed a bill that requires new planes to ship to US airlines with Secondary Barriers at the end of April. Of course, whether or not it passes in the senate with that language and whether or not the bill will be approved/vetoed by the president is a whole 'nother set of potential obstacles, and even if it did it wouldn't require secondary barrier installation on existing aircraft.

I personally see the retrofit and having to hook up some crazy barrier system consistently to multiple mount points that need to be added to an existing aircraft AND strong enough to survive both repeated use and an adult throwing their weight at it as impractical and of minimal benefit over the existing cart solution. I'm not really opposed to a requirement to put it in new aircraft because if the aircraft is designed with a secondary barrier option in mind it's going to be easier/quicker to deploy and likely much more robust than any retrofit solution.

Xyzzy

The drink carts work fine. This bill is a solution in search of a problem. But if we really want a better way t do it a brick wall would be an easier and more permanent solution.

MacLeanBarrier

The last one was issued on January 18, 2018 regarding a 9/11-style “jammed” into unlocked cockpit attack due to the lack of cockpit Installed Physical Secondary Barriers (IPSB) to protect pilots after unlocking cockpit doors to sleep, eat, or use the lavatory:

https://www.whistleblower.org/press/office-special-counsel-backs-whistleblower-further-aviation-security-breakdowns

Last week’s citing a potential plot using a synthetic opioid such as fentanyl or carfentanil, and the unwritten rule banning surprise law enforcement "open and look" checks into trucks —entering the airport operatations areas—with cargo bays containing religious flight meals:

https://www.whistleblower.org/press/whistleblower-agency-orders-new-investigations-aviation-security-breakdowns-exposed-air​​​​​​​

JamesBigglesworth

And your actual documented risk analysis is..... where? What's the reliability score of the threat?

Just how easy (You are quoted as claiming it is easy in the documents) to obtain carfentanil in aerosol form? Given the unregulated nature of it in most countries and the supposed risk, why haven't we seen it used at any time in the last 20+ years?

I will admit: you're good at finding solutions in search of problems.

MacLeanBarrier

Lethal chemical now used as a drug haunts theater hostages

WillCAD

Um... that's not exactly what you're warning against.

That was a case of the Russian government using carfentanyl as a chemical weapon against terrorists - irresponsibly killing 120 of the people they were supposedly trying to rescue.

Are there any other cases in history where aerosolized carfentanyl has been used as a weapon? Is there a case where an unauthorized person or group has used aerosolized carfentanyl as a weapon? Like, ever? Or is this another one of those wild theoretical attack vectors that people have seen in movies and are utterly convinced are imminent and inevitable? Like suitcase nukes and binary liquid explosives and electromagnetic railguns with x-ray scopes...

MacLeanBarrier

​​​​“The fatal potential of even glancing contact with fentanyl is a major reason why national security experts are becoming alarmed at the prospect of it being used to sow terror. The drug is ‘a significant threat to national security,’ Michael Morell, the former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama, wrote last year. ‘It is a weapon of mass destruction.’
[ . . . ]
“As a tool of terror, the drug would work best in a closed space, said Daniel Gerstein, a senior policy researcher at Rand Corp. who served as acting undersecretary in the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate in the Obama administration.”

https://www.bloombergquint.com/busin...ss-destruction

Boggie Dog

Would a person exposed to one of these agents have the awareness to administer the antidote to themselves before becoming nonfunctional? What's your plan for the other 200 or so people on the plane?

Perhaps there is a case for remotely piloted commercial aircraft!

petaluma1

To paraphrase another FTer: "The threat community never saw a threat they didn't like"

petaluma1

So your barrier is going to protect the pilots from this threat. Big whoop. What about the passengers on the plane - or are they all expendable?

WillCAD

Yeah, yeah, that's great, but what about my other question? Has fentanyl or its derivatives ever been used, even once, as a weapon of terror or mass destruction by anyone other than the Russian government?

To me this is another one of those theoretical threat vectors that, while it may indeed be possible, is unlikely enough that spending millions of dollars developing a defense against it is not only a tremendous waste, but a dangerous distraction that draws resources and attention away from much-needed defenses against far more likely threat vectors.

MacLeanBarrier

End the ridiculous practice of the pilots signalling everyone—two or more flight attendants "ineffectively" (per RTCA DO-329 study report and USDOT-OIG) turning a galley cart sideways into the entry—that one of them is going to unlock the door, and then needlessly switch out with a flight attendant—leaving the door wide-open four-times too long.

Deploy Installed Physical Secondary Barriers (IPSB) that enclose the forward galley. Just reinforcing the cockpit doors was a sloppy fix.

Equip the cockpits and aircraft medical kits with NARCAN doses in the case some synthetic opioid leaks past the solid IPSB.

Please open the 9/11 Commission report and Control+F "cockpit," "door," and "jammed themselves into" — the hijackers simply "jammed themselves into" the cockpits when the pilots unlocked them within 30 minutes after take-off.

The movie "United 93" also hints this after minute 46 into it.

In July 2003, the plot was the same: wait for the post-April 4, 2003 "reinforced" cockpit doors to open—

Boggie Dog

The odds of FAM's being on any given flight are slim. What then if this imaginary threat happened? And echoing, what about the passengers?

What concerns me more is the lack of screening of certain food trucks delivering meals to aircraft. That is unacceptable.