How Safe Are Airplanes From Terrorism?

I need to explain something important about airline safety. Most people think the biggest danger is a bomb on the plane. But there is another danger that almost nobody is talking about. It has to do with radio signals.

Let me start with my own story so you understand why I know about this. I survived the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. My cousin, Tommy Ferino, was a New York City fire captain. He died on 9/11. We buried an empty coffin for him. He was going to be promoted to battalion chief. I am writing this to keep people safe, not to scare them.

What Happened in the Ukraine War

If you have been following the war in Ukraine, you know that both sides use drones. The Russians try to jam the drones with powerful radio signals. They use jammers that work in the 2.4 to 5.2 gigahertz range. (A gigahertz is a billion radio waves per second. That is very fast.)

The Russian jammers are so strong that they sometimes jam their own equipment. They jam their own GPS. They jam their own radios between soldiers. They jam almost everything.

But here is the interesting part. Some Ukrainian drones still work even when jammed. Why? Because they use AI (artificial intelligence) to see where they are going, they follow preset images of the terrain, or they use fiber optic cables. Fiber optic cables carry light waves, not radio signals. You cannot jam light waves inside a cable.

How Safe Is Airport Security?

Let me be clear. The security you go through at the airport is very good. They check your bags. They check your shoes. They use metal detectors. They look for bombs and flammable materials. It would be very hard to sneak a bomb onto a plane today.

But that is not the biggest threat anymore.

The real threat is something called electromagnetic spectrum attack or radio frequency jamming. I wrote an article for a military magazine(MCPA) called “The Poor Man’s EMP Nuke.” I was later told that the White House reviewed my article. That is not bragging. That is just to show you that I know what I am talking about.

How Do Planes Land in Bad Weather?

To understand the danger, you need to know how planes land when they cannot see.

Good weather landing (Visual Flight Rules): When the weather is clear, pilots can look out the window. They see bridges, rivers, and landmarks. They know where they are. They can also use GPS, which is very easy to use.

Bad weather landing (Instrument Flight Rules): When there is fog, heavy rain, or snow, pilots cannot see. They have to use instruments. Those instruments depend completely on radio signals. The system is called ILS, which stands for Instrument Landing System.

The ILS is so accurate that planes can actually land themselves in bad weather. But here is the problem. The ILS runs on radio frequencies. And radio frequencies can be jammed.

The Terrorist Threat Nobody Is Talking About

What if a terrorist hides near an airport with a 100-watt radio jammer? That is much more powerful than a home Wi-Fi router. They would only need to turn it on for 15 or 30 seconds. Just enough time to block the signals when a plane is trying to land in heavy fog.

Airports are very vulnerable because of where they are located. Think about JFK Airport, LaGuardia, or Newark. There are places nearby where someone could hide with a small device.

You do not need to be a genius to build a jammer. An amateur radio operator could do it. Someone who took physics in high school could do it. An electrical engineer could do it. A computer hacker could do it.

Why Isn’t Anyone Stopping This?

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is in charge of airplane safety. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is in charge of radio frequencies. Both of these agencies are good at their jobs. But they are not thinking like creative hackers.

They are not ignorant because they are stupid. They are ignorant because they have not been trained to think about this specific threat. It takes a different kind of thinking, like a computer hacker trying to find a weakness in a system.

What Needs to Happen?

People need to know about this danger. Airports need to be aware of radio jamming, not just bombs. There may be ways to counter this threat. I’m working on thought experiments of what can be done to ameliorate this situation. That brings some ideas, but I have a 72-year-old hacker brain, not a 25-year-old hacker brain. But first, people have to understand that the threat exists.

Final Thoughts

I am not trying to make you afraid to fly. The security at airports is very good against bombs and weapons. But we need to think about the next threat. The people who want to hurt us are also thinking about the next threat. We need to stay ahead of them.

I survived one terrorist attack at the World Trade Center in 1993. I lost my cousin on 9/11. I do not want more families to go through what my family went through. Please share this information. Tell people about the danger of radio jamming near airports. The more people know, the harder it is for terrorists to surprise us.

God bless everyone. Stay safe.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

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