Review the webinar on how to become an on-air expert for radio or TV

The AirSafe.com live webinar on how to become an on-air expert for radio or television was broadcast on June 6th. In that webinar, Dr. Todd Curtis of AirSafe.com, who has been a guest for dozens of radio and television shows over the past decade, explained how he became a sought after expert for media outlets like CNN, BBC, and Discovery Channel, and explained several of the basic steps you shold take if you aspire to get on the air.

View the completed webinar

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Dr. Curtis featured in upcoming television program
You can see and hear some examples of Dr. Curtis being interviewed, at the AirSafe.com YouTube channel. Also, in June 2013, Dr. Curtis will be featured in the four-part series Terror in the Skies, which will air Sunday evenings on the UK's Channel 4.

For viewers in the UK, the show will air American viewers will see a version of the series on the Smithsonian Channel but the date and time is still to be determined. Once this information, those on the AirSafe.com mailing list will be informed.

Air Marshal Subdues Suspicious Passenger on Washington to Denver Flight

April 7, 2010, 10:16 pm EDT - Early news reports indicated that a Federal Air Marshal subdued a passenger on United flight 663 during a Washington (DCA) to Denver flight after a passenger reportedly behaved oddly and claimed to have attempted to ignite some kind of device. The 757, which was carrying 157 passengers and six crew members, landed at Denver at about 7 p.m. local time without further incident, and there were no reports of any injuries.

About half an hour before landing, a passenger had been in the lavatory for some period of time, and was approached by an air marshal because of a smell of smoke. The passenger allegedly told an air marshal that he was a Qatari diplomat, and when asked what he was doing remarked that he had been trying to set his shoes on fire. The diplomat was later identified by CNN as Mohammaed Al-Madadi. The US State Department's Diplomatic List for Qatar lists a Mohammed Yaaqob Y.M. Al Madadi with the title of Third Secretary. No official source has confirmed that this was the person taken into custody on the incident flight.

The flight crew was notified, and NORAD scrambled two USAF F-16s that intercepted the airliner at about 6:45 p.m. and escorted the plane to Denver. Officials took the passenger into custody and interviewed the other passengers on the flight. There were no explosives or other dangerous articles found.

The 27-year-old diplomat was not charged, and was later released and allowed to return to Washington, DC.

Message from the Qatari Ambassador
Within hours of the incident, the Qatari ambassador to the US, Ali bin Fahad Al-Hajri, made the following statement:

Press reports today regarding an incident aboard a commercial flight from Washington, DC to Denver, CO indicate that a Qatari diplomat was detained for suspicious behavior.  We respect the necessity of special security precautions involving air travel, but this diplomat was traveling to Denver on official embassy business on my instructions, and he was certainly not engaged in any threatening activity.  the facts will reveal that this was a mistake, and we urge all concerned parties to avoid reckless judgments or speculation.

For a detailed timeline of this flight, check out this Atlantic magazine article.

Another Perspective on the Risk of Airline Bombings

Since 2001, terror events, including attempted bombings, have been a serious concern for passengers and governments around the world. While high profile terror events of all kinds have been a concern, the probability of a bombing event involving a US airliner or a flight departing or arriving from the US hasn't seen any major changes since 1960.

Terror Events in the Previous Decade
Nate Silver, better know as the person behind the political polling site FiveThirtyEight.com, ran an article that used data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to evaluate the risk of a terrorist attack on airliners that either departed from the US or had a US destination.

Looking over the ten year period from 2000-2009, Silver identified six attempted terror-related events on board these airline flights, including the four planes hijacked on 9/11, the December 2001 attempted bombing of an American Airlines 767 by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, and the January 2009 attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines A330 by alleged underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Odds of Being a Terror Victim
Silver reviewed BTS records and estimated that there were 99.3 million commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States, or one terrorist incident per 16.6 million departures.

He further estimated that excluding crew members, bombers and hijackers, there were 674 passengers on those six flights on which these incidents occurred, compared with seven million estimated passenger enplanements during that decade, giving the probability of being on a given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident of about 1 in 10.4 million. He contrasts this risk with the 1 in 500,000 chance of being struck by lightning.

Odds of Being a Bombing Victim
If you only look at the bombing events in there previous decade, there were two, including last month's attempt on Northwest Airlines and the 2001 show bombing event. Using Nate Silver's numbers, the rate of bombing events on US airliners from 2000 to 2009 was 1 in 31.2 million departures.

Previous US Bombing Events
Nate Sliver only looked at events during the previous decade. AirSafe.com has tracked US bombing attempts going back to the 1950s, and found that in the four decades from 1960 to 1999, there were eight events on US airliners that involved a bombing attempt or a successful bombing, with seven involving passenger fatalities. This averaged two per decade, compared with the six in the decades of the 1990s. However, the average number of flights was lower during this 40-year period. According to BTS data, there were about 311.6 million flights during this four decade period, which means the rate of bombing attempts from 1960-1999 was 1 per 39 million flights, compared to 1 per 31.2 million flights for 2000-2009.

How These Two Periods Compare
One of the things that stand out with the events from 1960-1999 was that only six of the bombing events involved a deliberate attempt by individuals or groups that could be associated with terrorism. If only those six are counted, then the rate for the 1960-1999 period drops to 1 in 59.1 million flights, roughly half the risk of the 2000-2009 period.

Does this mean that the risk of bomb related terrorism has doubled in the previous decade? Maybe. However, if the alleged underwear bomber had waited another week and attempted a bombing on January 1st, the 2000-2009 rate would have been 1 in 64.4 million flights, even less than the terror-related bombing rate for 1960-1999.

Why the TSA Can't Eliminate the Threat from Bombs

In the wake of last month's attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines A330, the US government has taken several steps which were intended to reduce the risk of someone else getting on an airplane with a bomb. While steps like these will reduce the risk, it will not eliminate the risk.

How Safe is Safe Enough?
When it comes to bombs on an airplane, the average passenger would consider the situation safe enough if the probability of a bomb on board an airplane were zero, but the reality of the situation is that as long as people have a desire to blow up airplanes full of passengers, steps can be taken to make flying safer by reducing that probability, but as long as there are airliners flying, the probability can't be eliminated.

Risk Management and Airline Security
Risk can be defined as the probability of some undesirable event like a bomb exploding on an airplane. Risk management is the process of reducing risk by either reducing the probability of an event or reducing the severity of the event. The steps taken by the US government are risk management steps that may reduce the likelihood that a bomb will be exploded on an airplane, but none of these steps are 100% effective.

How Airline Security Works
The short story is that there are multiple things that can be done to stop bombings, hijackings, sabotage, and other mayhem out of the skies. Passenger screening at the airport is one of the things that everyone can see, and there is much more that is not so visible, from bomb-sniffing dogs to terrorists watch lists. There are many procedures and systems in place because no one system or procedure can prevent every attempt to bring down an airplane. For an example, you can look at one part of the US government's response to the Christmas day bombing event, placing advanced screening systems in US airports.

Advanced Imaging Units Deployed to US Airports
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would was adding at least 300 advanced imaging units throughout the United States by the end of 2010. This technology produces a full body scan that would show a graphic image of a person's body underneath his or her clothes. Had one of these devices been used to screen the alleged bomber, it would have presumably detected the the explosive device hidden under his clothes.

Sample Image from a Full Body Scan Device

How the Technology Was Used in 2009
While these detection systems may be useful, the way that they have been deployed in the past and the way that they will be deployed in the near future guarantee that not all passengers will be screened using these systems. The Transportation Security Administration provided a detailed overview of how 40 of these units were used in they were deployed in 2009 at 19 US airports. They were used as a primary screening method at only six airports, and as a secondary screening method at the 13 other airports. TSA plans to install hundreds more this year, but not all US airports will have this option available.

Why this Method Can't Be 100% Effective
In addition and plans to deploy at least 300 additional units in 2010. Even if the TSA meets its goal and adds 300 units to the 40 currently in use, not every airport will have them, since the TSA provides screening at about 450 airports. This means that for some airports passengers will have to be screened with systems or methods that don't have the advantages or capabilities of these advanced detection units.

Even if an airport has these devices in available, they may not be used. The TSA emphasized that these technologies were optional, and any passenger that did not want to use them could be screened with another method.

Why a Less than Perfect System Is Acceptable
While some passengers may wonder why TSA would place these advanced devices only in some airports, and would not require that all passengers be screened in this way, keep in mind that this kind of technology is only one kind of protective system, designed to protect airliners against individuals who try to sneak weapons, bombs, and other banned items into the secure area of an airport. Even a partial implementation of these security measures may find some banned items, and may deter some potential terrorists from attempting to bring bombs and guns on board aircraft.

Why Extra Security Is not Enough
The threat from those who want to disrupt the air transportation system is one that constantly evolves. For every system or procedure that is put into place, those who intend to bring harm to the system will take steps to either avoid those measures or find a way to defeat them. While extra measures will not make air travel perfectly safe, they will likely make travel less risky.

Resources
TSA imaging technology background information
Bomb related deaths on US and Canadian airliners since 1949

Poll Question of the Day
The USA Today newspaper and the Gallup polling organization recently released a poll that says 78% of air travelers who have taken at least one trip in the last 12 months approve of US airports' using full body scan imaging on airline passengers. AirSafe.com would like to know how you feel about this technology:

The survey is now closed. The survey asked the following questions:

• Do you approve of full body scans at US airports?
  
  
• Should children be scanned in this way?
  
  
• Have you flown on airliner at least once in the past 12 months?
  
  
• What do you think about the increased security?

The results of the survey are available here.

What Are the Key Airline Security and Terrorists Databases?

With the recent arrest of a suspect in the failed bombing of Northwest flight 253, one of the questions asked was why was this person allowed to get on an airplane if his name was in one of the US databases of suspected terrorists? The short story is that the suspect would have been barred from boarding if he were on a very specific list called the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA's) No-fly list. He would have been subject to extra scrutiny, but not necessarily barred from boarding, if he were on the TSA's Selectee list.

The suspect was on a much larger list of people with terrorists ties, but being on that list doesn't lead to increased TSA scrutiny. What follows is a very brief description of these three databases, plus a fourth database, that are relevant to the recent bombing situation.

Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE)
This is the US government's central repository of information on international terrorist activities. The database includes people who commit terrorist activities, who plan such activities, or perform supporting activities such as fund raising providing safe houses. The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was added to this database last month, and there are about 500,000 unique individuals in the database, of which 95% are non-US citizens. For more details, you can view the fact sheet on this database.

Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB)
only individuals who are known or reasonably suspected to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism. This database consolidates information that used to be located in several different US government agencies. It is more restrictive than the TIDE database, and contains about 400,000 names. The suspect in the bombing was not one of them. The FBI has a list of frequently asked questions about this database.

Selectee List
Maintained by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), this database contains the names of individuals who must undergo additional security screening before being permitted to board an aircraft. This list, which has about 14,000 people, is a subset of the TSDB.

No-fly List
As the name implies, this is a list of people who are not allowed to board an airliner. Like the Selectee List, this No-fly list is maintained by the TSA and is a subset of the TSDB. This list has fewer than 4,000 names.

So far, the US government has admitted that there was insufficient information available on the suspect to place him in any of the last three lists, including the no-fly list. Also, the suspect's US entry visa, which was granted in 2008 before he was placed on the TIDE list, was not restricted or revoked after being placed on that list.

Unsuccessful Attempt to Detonate a Bomb on Northwest flight 253 near Detroit

A passenger on a Northwest Airlines A330-300(N820NW) apparently attempted to detonate an explosive device while the aircraft was approaching Detroit. Flight 253 was an international flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, and early reports are that a passenger, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (earlier reports had his name as Abdul Mudallad), a 23-year-old Nigerian national, allegedly had the device strapped to one of his legs, and that the device was triggered during descent (about 20 minutes before landing) and started a small fire. The flight, operated by Northwest Airlines using an Airbus 330-300 aircraft with 278 passengers and 11 crew members on board, landed safely, and the suspect, the only person injured, was transported to a local hospital for treatment of serious burns.

A passenger who was interviewed by CNN stated that the suspect was sitting in seat 19A, that he heard a popping sound, followed by a glow and the smell of smoke . Nearby passengers subdued the suspect. Another passenger in an interview published by the Wall Street Journal said that she was in seat 18B, and she heard a loud bang after the aircraft had lowered its landing gear. Reportedly, at first she thought the plane might have gotten a flat tire, but then she said saw a flame leap from the lap of a man sitting in the row behind her in the window seat, 19A. The suspect was subdued, and moved to another part of the aircraft for the rest of the flight.

Northwest flight 253 had departed Amsterdam at about 0845 local time Friday morning, and arrived at Detroit, MI at about noon local time. The flight crew had declared some kind of emergency before the landing. The Airbus A330 had 278 passengers on board. Early reports also indicate that the suspect started his journey on a KLM flight from Nigeria to Amsterdam, and had connected with flight 253 in Amsterdam.

The device was described by unidentified US officials as a mixture of powder and liquid. Other reports included details such as the suspect using a syringe to inject some kind of liquid into the device.

Rep. Peter King, a US congressman from New York State, claims that the suspect's name did not appear on any of the terrorist watch lists maintained by US authorities, but that his name did turn up in other terrorism-related databases maintained by intelligence officials. An unidentified US official also claims that the suspect told investigators that he was given the device by al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, where he was also given instructions on how to detonate it. An unidentified White House official claims that this event was “an attempted act of terrorism.”


According to this Trip Advisor seat map of a Northwest A330-300, seat 19A would be a window seat situated directly over the left wing.

The White House has reportedly ordered unspecified increased security procedures at airports around the country, though the Department of Homeland Security threat level for the air transportation system has not changed from it current level of 'High' (orange) to 'Severe' (red).


Additional Information
Fatal US and Canadian bombing events
Other A330 crashes and significant events
Airline security suggestions from AirSafe.com
Top Ten AirSafe.com tips for high threat travel

A330 Photo: J.P. Karas; Seat Map: TripAdvisor.com