Enforcing Existing Standards

Posted: December 23rd, 2015

By Norman Shanks

Norman Shanks is the Principal Partner of Norman Shanks Associates International (NSAI), a specialist security and business management consultancy; a Visiting Professor in Aviation Security at Coventry University; and a Fellow at The Security Institute. As Airport Security Manger at Heathrow Airport and later head of Group Security for British Airport Authorities (BAA), he designed and pioneered the 100 percent Hold Baggage Screening (HBS) system that is used globally for checked baggage screening.

The loss of the Russian Metrojet aircraft in Egypt last October raised inevitable questions about the security measures in place at Sharm el-Sheikh, and what should be done to prevent future attacks.

At first, both the Egyptian and Russian governments refused to acknowledge that the crash was most likely caused by a terrorist act. Even after UK and U.S. authorities voiced early suspicions that it was caused by a bomb on board, it was another few weeks before the Russian Federal Security Service (FSS) announced that it was a terrorist attack with an improvised bomb detonated during the flight. The Egyptian government then reluctantly accepted this conclusion, based on forensic evidence collected at the scene of the crash site.

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