Security standards in airports are developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, a special agency of the UN. Its members have to provide national programs for security of civil aviation, according to the ICAO standards, which controls the process, interacting with local aviation authorities, TASS reports. On the basis of the ICAO requirements, governmental or nongovernmental aviation agencies provide certification of airports. Depending on a class of an airport, it is certified by either the Intergovernmental Aviation Committee or Rosaviation in Russia. They are also responsible for auditing the security in airports. There are 30 accredited ICAO training centers on aviation security in the world. In Russia, such a center has been operating since 1996. However, after the disaster of the Russian airplane in Egypt, they began to discuss the ineffectiveness of the security system.
Victor Gorbachev, Director General of the Association ‘Airport’ of Civil Aviation, thinks that it is not necessary to use anything extra for providing aviation security: “All that is quite enough, the main thing is implementation. If we implement all the documents which are currently operating there, it is impossible to say that this will provide 100% of implementation, because this is simply impossible, but it can provide 99%.”
The expert thinks it is senseless to introduce the institution of marshals, security officers on airplane board: “What can a marshal do when a bomb explodes in the luggage compartment, in the compartment of an aircraft? He will die with everyone else. He cannot do anything if a bomb explodes inside. No one enters with a suicide belt on a plane, because he is going to be checked twice, three times. It’s just physically impossible to check all of the aircraft. It is impossible to create a dog service that would check every aircraft before departure. You see how many flights there are, for example, at Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo – thousands. It is impossible to keep 5-10 thousand dogs so they can check everything, it is simply impossible.”
Today Russia has two laws on safety. There is the Code of the Air, and there is the 16th Law on Transport Security, and there are a lot of acts of government regulations, orders of the Minister, orders of Rosaviation, federal aviation rules. “This terrible mass of documents by law and regulations require implementation, though hard implementation. So there are no such cases, when some media representatives write that it has been checked, has been carried out, we need to avoid this. To everyone at the place, you do what is required of him to officers of aviation security it is at the location and looking to what and how sweeps. After all, our country has introduced additional stricter requirements compared to those requirements which have been introduced by the International Civil Aviation Organization. We have strengthened these requirements, they are not present in any other country, except if ours. This is a 50-meter zone at the entrance to the international airport, you cannot park closer. These are additional measures at the entrances to the airports, you cannot see these kinds of things in any other European airport that at the entrance to the airport terminal there are introscopes and X-ray machines. We introduced this and a lot of other things. This is to protect the perimeter and entrances and departures. If all of this will be respected, then nothing will happen,” Gorbachev is sure.
