Aviation Security: An Emerging Threat
Aviation security is an ever evolving challenge for the aviation industry. As technology continues to progress the tools of deviant actors improve but the security measures also improve to combat them. The the ever changing security risks can lead to emerging threats such as 3D printed weapons. This is a relatively new threat as 3D printers have recently become affordable and easy to acquire. The issue with 3D printed weapons is that they are made of composites and plastics which make them harder to detect on X-rays and other scanning machines. They also may pass off as replica weapon which could make it through security in a checked bag per the TSA rules but if there was an inside worker who could access after it was checked it could be used to hijack a plane by the worker or if the worker were to pass it to someone on the flight. This threat could challenge a few layers of security but there are ways to mitigate it in each of those layers which I will get into next.
To mitigate the threat of 3D weapons there are a few layers of security to stop the threat to include: Intelligence, Behavior Detection, Checked Baggage, and Hardened Cockpit doors. Starting with intelligence, the plans for 3D weapons can be tracked online so those who are sharing them could be tracked to see what their intentions are for them. Also if there is communication between bad actors it could be used to stop the threat. This ties into behavior detection because with the many parts to an attack some of the actors could have suspicious behavior like trying to get through security in a haste and being defensive about a search of their bag. When the bags are being checked would be the easiest way to catch the contraband and to increase the effectiveness, new training on how to spot the weapons would help eliminate the threat. As a last resort the hardened cockpit doors would be effective against the threat without any improvement but as technology improves the door design would be more effective.
My recommendation to improve the security against the threat would be to use an AI software paired with new X-ray and 3D scanners to help identify weapon pieces that a security worker may over look because of how normal a piece of the weapon could look. By gathering plans and using existing confiscated 3D printed weapons the AI software could process a scan and detect the parts by itself and alert the security personnel. This would work because even the smallest parts would be detected and it takes the human error out of the equation and since it is an AI program it can learn from each and every weapon found and could be continuously updated with the latest intelligence.
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