But actually preventing someone slipping into the undercarriage depends on checks and procedures that are not always present, Shanks warns.
"In a lot of places around the world, the control of movement and airside control areas is not the same as what we have here."
"It's much easier in some locations to access the airside areas than it is in the UK. The only way it could be prevented is if the rest of the world tightened their procedures."
I would think the obvious solution would be to slap a big old multilingual warning sign on the wheel wells, clearly stating "flying in wheel wells WILL result in death by asphyxiation, hypothermia, and severe physical trauma".
This really shows up how much of our security is theatre - if people can get into the wheel well of a flight landing at Heathrow there's very little stopping someone putting a bomb there. Yet legitimate, paying travellers have to jump through all the hoops.
I did not see statistics on # of people stopped, # of people who were deterred, and less than a 100 succeeded in hundreds of thousands of flights.
Attempting to stop people or bombs in under carriage would EXACTLY BE SECURITY THEATER. That is an overreaction to insignificant but recently hyped/fear mongered threat that results in no statistically significant reduction in risk. But, writes up good in the papers.
People thinking like you are why security theater can exist.
The statistics lacking is a very good point, and a large oversight on my part.
However, I wasn't saying that we should be trying to stop this. I meant to show up, conversely, that a lot of the existing security is there merely for show.
Keeping bombs out of the cargo bay is one of the things we seem to do very well, and has little to do with all the screenings we instituted since 9/11.
How many planes have been bombed by someone sneaking something into the wheel well?
I can't imagine it would be too hard to place a bomb in the wheel well of a plane parked in Nairobi, for example. The biggest issue would be avoiding the pilot's pre-flight check.
That wouldn't be to hard to do if you are a member of a ground crew that has access to the aircraft after the pilot is on board.
How many planes have been bombed full stop? As an attacker, why would you ever try to bomb a plane? Unlike a hostage-taking/hijacking where there are obvious advantages to being in a plane, if you just want to plant a bomb and kill some people you can do that much more easily in a building, or on a train, or...
This presumes people this desperate and, at the same time, willing to undertake such a fool's errand would be literate. It would also have to be a very big sign to cover even half the languages spoken in India.
What might be better is having a camera or motion sensor in the wheel well that can look for surprise guests.
"In a lot of places around the world, the control of movement and airside control areas is not the same as what we have here."
"It's much easier in some locations to access the airside areas than it is in the UK. The only way it could be prevented is if the rest of the world tightened their procedures."
I would think the obvious solution would be to slap a big old multilingual warning sign on the wheel wells, clearly stating "flying in wheel wells WILL result in death by asphyxiation, hypothermia, and severe physical trauma".