Author: Jeffrey Price and Jeffrey Forrest
ISBN No: 978-0-12-391419-4
Review date: 16/12/2025
No of pages: 520
Publisher: Butterworth Heinemann
Publisher URL:
http://www.bh.com
Year of publication: 06/11/2013
Brief:
Practical Aviation Security: Predicting and Preventing Future Threats
price
£36.74
Aviation security – the protection of people, cargo, machines and buildings – is well and thoroughly covered in a new edition of an American book.
As the title suggests, this book is about practical aviation security. Unsurprisingly, the book begins and is informed by 9-11, but as the authors point out, the first hijacking dates from 1931, in Peru. Or, strictly and legally speaking, should we not speak of air piracy? As that suggests, while aviation is only about a century old, the threats are the same as for other methods of transport. As the American authors point out early on: “Terrorists view aviation as too valuable a target to ignore.” Does this mean – a nasty thought – we have to accept some losses? Keep in mind that in air travel there is besides the matter of airline safety; things go wrong. Hence aviation is regulated, not only for security. The authors go mainly through the subject from a North American perspective, though they do cover European rules. As the chapters make clear – covering cargo, passenger screening, and physical and electronic security of airports – we are talking about ‘systems of systems’. Think of the Lockerbie bomb, or 9-11; you’re only as secure as the weakest part of security. The authors conclude that aviation security has to evolve, making the important point that ‘the purpose of an airport and aircraft is to move people and materials, and that the vast majority of the travelling public, and their associated baggage and cargo, present little or no risk to the system’. A weighty book for a weighty subject.
