A mob incursion into Makhachkala airport in Dagestan on Sunday reveals fault lines in civil aviation security policy intended to ensure the safety and security of global air travel.
On social media, footage showed angry crowds of hundreds running through Makhachkala airport in search of passengers arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv. The mob surrounded aircraft on the runway and chased passengers riding on airport buses.
Later, security forces brought the situation under control, and officials closed the airport on Sunday night. On Monday, Russia’s civil aviation agency, Rosaviatsia, announced the airport had reopened. The agency noted that flights from Israel to the North Caucasus would be “temporarily redirected to other cities.”
Police Injured And Passengers Hunted
According to reports, 20 people were injured, including two with critical injuries. Nine police officers were injured attempting to control the incident. One group tried to overturn a police patrol truck.
A separate group of rioters on the tarmac surrounded a Red Wings aircraft that had arrived from Tel Aviv. While security forces said that passengers on the plane were safe, reports from individuals present suggest too close a call.
One of the passengers, an Israeli citizen, said police had transferred passengers onto a bus, which was then chased around the airport and boarded by rioters who interrogated frightened passengers, searching for Jews. “It could have ended in our murder. We know that the rioters shot and wounded a flight attendant,” the passenger told Israeli news site Ynet. Israel has urged
Russia to protect its citizens and all Jews living in Russia.
Vladimir Putin Meets With Security And Law Enforcement
Authorities detained 60 people and have identified 150 of the protesters. A senior Russian Rabbi urged the Kremlin to ensure that rioters who breached the airport were punished.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called a meeting of security and law enforcement officials Monday in response to the airport incursion. These types of incidents require direct government response in keeping with global civil aviation treaties.
Airports Procedures Tackle Unlawful Interference
There are established international practices in place to protect those who rely on civil aviation from attacks. Treaties and standards established by the United Nations International Civil Aviation Authority are intended to protect the global aviation network. These agreements and standards rely on individual States, their civil aviation authorities, and civil aviation stakeholders to carry out preventative measures ahead of an attack.
“Airports usually oversee access control to their premises but are most of the time depending on law enforcement agencies to intervene in situations requiring coercion or force,” a spokesperson for Airports Council International Europe explains. “In addition to access control, airports proactively patrol their perimeters and employ various technologies for aerodrome monitoring to swiftly detect potential breaches, facilitating the activation of law enforcement and appropriate countermeasures. Moreover, airports collaborate with authorities to monitor risks and can adjust or strengthen security measures to prevent or detect such incidents as early as possible. Airports maintain close cooperation with law enforcement to establish airport security plans and ensure adequate security resource allocation, which evolves to address emerging security threats. ACI closely monitors developments in collaboration with the community and works with its members to establish robust plans. This is an ongoing, consistent effort, not dictated by external events.”
The situation at Makhachkala airport in Dagestan overwhelmed these standard procedures. Inquiries into the situation are the protocol of civil aviation guidelines under international treaties preventing unlawful interference in civil aviation rights. They include forcible intrusion onboard an aircraft, at an airport, or at any aeronautical facility.
ICAO Global Aviation Security Plan
Aviation has long been a target for those who want to disrupt civil society and a global marketplace. Efforts to keep civil aviation secure are ongoing, adapting to new threats.
At the 39th Assembly of ICAO in September 2016, delegates agreed on the need for a new Global Aviation Security Plan as a future aviation security policy and programming framework, replacing the previous ICAO Comprehensive Aviation Security Strategy. The GASeP guides all aviation security enhancement through international agreements. States, industry, stakeholders, and ICAO collaborate to enhance aviation security, raising the level of implementation of ICAO Annex 17, which specifically addresses security.
In GASeP, ICAO members established a roadmap of required tasks and actions that will enhance security, as well as performance indicators and target dates for implementation. This document is periodically reviewed and adjusted to address emerging aviation security threats.
ICAO uses information from multiple sources to assess the risks to international civil aviation and identify priorities in the GASeP.
Airport Incursions Are A Known Security Risk
In the founding document, ICAO identified the threat of airport incursions as one of the security risks.
The Organization referenced sixty-nine acts of unlawful interference recorded between 2011 and 2016. Twenty-one out of 69 incidents resulted in fatalities, with a total of 884 deaths. Attacks on facilities accounted for the highest number of incidents, 24, representing 32% of all incidents recorded.
“Attacks on the landside areas of airports have highlighted a growing threat to locations where members of the public and passengers circulate with minimal restrictions and congregate at predictable times,” the authors of the GASeP stated.“ICAO assesses landside threats to be credible and real.”
Sunday’s incident demonstrated how quickly landside airport attacks can become airside threats.
Inadequate Access Control Measures For Aviation Security
ICAO found data confirming a need for “critical improvements” to address gaps, including “inadequate access control measures to security restricted areas, deficiencies in the implementation of airport personnel identification and vehicle pass systems, lack of airport-level human and technical resources for aviation security, and ineffective screening and security controls of non-passengers granted access to the SRA.”
In Sunday’s incident, the lack of human and technical resources became painfully apparent, as did other gaps GASeP identified: “a need for more aviation security awareness, deploying more appropriate resources, stronger political will, improved security culture, and increased quality control and oversight, amongst others.”
Aviation Security Is Up To The Sovereign State
There will be aviation inquiries on the incident at Makhachkala airport to determine where established precautions failed. One of ICAO’s requirements is that States file an immediate official report on the Act of Unlawful Interference to inform future security best practices. An ICAO spokesperson was unable to comment on whether Russia has filed a report on the incident in Dagestan due to the confidentiality of correspondence between ICAO and States.
The spokesperson also clarified that ICAO establishes standards but is not responsible for the regulations which ensure adherence. Regulations and any other corrective actions to resolve security breaches of this kind are the responsibility of the civil aviation regulator of each sovereign State.
Long before this incident, GASeP authors wrote, “As terrorists find innovative ways to target the system, States must continue to address the risks.”
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