Airport and Aviation Safety after 9/11

Air travel is one of the most popular means of transportation in the world. It’s estimated that there are some 25,000 daily flights in the United States, serving around 1.5 million passengers. This is why airport and aviation safety is so important. In 1926, the Air Commerce Act was established to regulate navigational facilities, air traffic, aviation safety, airport safety, operating procedures, air navigation, investigation of accidents, and so on.

One of the greatest disasters in recent history occurred on September 11, 2001. In the attacks, the hijackers used commercial aircrafts to crash into the World Trade Center. The two buildings collapsed, killing close to 3,000 people and injuring more than 6,000 people. To increase airport and aviation safety, stricter new regulations were introduced. The USA PATRIOT (Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act was imposed and a new U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) organization was established after the 9/11 attacks. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was responsible for making decisions related to grounding flights and it issued regulations to form a runway safety area.

Weather Concerns

For safe air travel, weather conditions should be appropriate. To keep track of the weather, aviation and meteorological observations have to be made. Weather forecasting is done through automated airport weather stations where information such as wind speed, direction, visibility, precipitation, cloud, temperature, icing, sea level pressure, precipitation accumulation, and lightning is collected. Automatic weather observations are done through automated VHF air band radio frequency at the airports.

Aircraft Concerns

For safe and successful flights, the aircraft has to be in excellent condition. The FAA has outlined a series of checks for all aircrafts. The “A Check” is to be carried out every 500 to 800 flight hours. The “B Check” is carried out every 3 months. Both these routine checks can be preformed overnight at an airport gate. The “C Check” is carried out every 12 to 18 months or after a specified number of actual flight hours. This maintenance check has to be done in a hangar and renders the aircraft out of service. The “D Check” is the most thorough aircraft check. It’s carried out every 4 to 5 years. Basically, the entire aircraft is taken apart for a thorough inspection.

Nature

BASH or Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard refers to the condition in which an aircraft suffers collision due to birds, bats, or other natural hazards. Bird strike is one of the major threats to aircrafts and it has brought about a number of major accidents. Bird strike can happen anytime during takeoff or landing, and it has been reported even at higher altitudes. Reports indicate that more than 90 percent of bird collisions happen close to the airport. There are also other natural hazards like volcanic ash from volcanic eruptions which can affect aviation safety.

Human Factors

To prevent accidents, crew members on aircrafts are strictly advised not to consume alcohol or illegal drugs. Human failures can be a cause for aircraft accidents. Some of the health conditions causing human failures are deterioration in vision and hearing. A rare type of human failure is sudden death caused by myocardial infarction. Loss of consciousness can be caused by epileptic fit, food poisoning, intoxication or cardiac syncope.

Terrorism

Air piracy, criminal acts, and terrorism are major issues for aircraft security. Serious measures have to be taken to prevent it. Crew members should be trained and they should be alert about suspected threats from time to time. Post September 11, 2001, the security mechanism was questioned because the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks passed the checkpoints and boarded the aircrafts without issues. To tighten airport and aviation security, new regulations have been introduced. Before the attacks, private companies were trusted with providing security at the airports. Now, the security issue has been handled by TSA. One of the new measures is the installation of bulletproof and locked cockpit doors to improve the security of cockpits. Box cutter knives which were used during the attacks were qualified under hazardous materials. Passengers are prohibited from carrying gels, liquids, and aerosols into the aircraft. All passengers should have valid identification papers and they are checked through hand held metal detectors. There’s also a limit on the number of items to be carried into the aircraft. New scanning techniques such as millimeter wave full body scanning, automatic biological pathogen detection and fingerprint scanning are used to detect explosive material traces.

Airport Design

All sensitive areas of the airport such as the operational spaces and the airport ramps are considered restricted areas. There’s an identification system used to enter the Security Identification Display Area. In 1999, the FAA issued regulations to form a runway safety area which has 500 feet on the each side and 1000 feet beyond the end of the runway. Runway safety involves preventing confusion, excursion and incursion of aircrafts.