Last year 537 people died on two separate Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flights. One of them – flight MH17 – was definitely not an accident, and the other, MH370, may not have been accidental either.
That’s a big loss of life. Airlines know what it takes to reduce accident risk, but they are not experts in countering the risk of being shot down – or obscurely motivated deliberate acts, if the latter was behind MH370’s loss.
Are these areas of expertise airlines must now acquire if they are to retain credibility as a safe mode of transport? This is a valid question, because the public perception of airline safety in 2014 is that it was bad, although accident statistics say it was very safe. Passengers do not differentiate between causes of death, they want protection against all fatal risks, not just the risk of an event defined by insurers as accidental.
The industry has painfully acquired expertise in security at airports, and in onboard counter-hijack measures. But threats of being shot down and individuals – possibly employees – with malign intent; how does an airline guard against those?
ICAO is trying to ensure airlines are privy to better intelligence about conflict zone risk, but identifying individual malign intent raises the spectre of human resources departments adopting Big Brother tactics.
Before the industry rushes into action, it should remind itself how rare these events are.
Source: Flight International
