Drones and Airport Security

The International Air Transport Association lists the four greatest threats to aviation security as insider threat (airport/airline employees carrying out an attack), aviation cybersecurity (hacking into the systems that control day to day operations to cause disruption), security on the ground (having the right amount in the right place), and conflict zones (unauthorized incursions into the airport airspace) (Smith, 2018). You may be surprised to find terrorism missing from this list, but that is because it has aspects in all these four.

 

 

December 2019 saw London’s Gatwick airport cancel hundreds of flights and divert many more inbound due to sightings of two drones being flown close to the airport’s perimeter (McTegg, Fayez, Simmons, Gharineiat, 2022). As the ownership of drones has increased in recent years and there not being a registration requirement with authorities (so long as you operate under USC 44809), the potential of a repeat of Gatwick at airports anywhere in the world is an all too real hazard. A drone can cause severe and fatal consequences to aircraft and with procurement from as little as a few hundred dollars it can be seen as a cheap way to inflict damage to airport operations. This was attempted by activist group Extinction Rebellion during the summer of 2019 at London Heathrow but was foiled by police using signal jamming technology (Mercer, 2019).

 

The TSA takes drone incursions very seriously. The FAA has “No Drone Zones” where it prohibits the operation of them around airports. Areas within a 5-mile radius are considered restricted flight zones where permission to fly is required, and within 1.5-miles are deemed no-fly zones. The problem comes that the signature of a drone is too small to be detected by radar. In its arsenal the TSA employs signal jammers around airports. These are either fixed masts or can be high powered jammers fitted to their own drones. In addition, shotgun shells containing Kevlar threads which form a net to take down the drone can be used. Moving forward, methods to deter these operators will come in the form of education, companies installing transponders in drones to enable tracking, an increase in TSA personnel monitoring the area around the airport, or stronger forms of punishment to act as a deterrent. In my eyes, it seems that keeping drones away from critical infrastructures can only be achieved by employing effective signal jamming technology that only targets drones and not the airport electronics. This would require some form of military ECM capability. Secondly, an increase in patrols, yet I feel this would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

 

 

References

Smith, C. (2018, January 6). 4 threats to aviation security. News24. https://www.news24.com/fin24/4-threats-to-aviation-security-iata-20180105

McTegg, S., Fayez, T., Simmons, S., & Gharineiat, Z. (2022). Comparative approach of unmanned aerial vehicle restrictions in controlled airspaces. Remote Sensing 14(4). https://www.proquest.com/docview/2633136841?pq-origsite=primo

Mercer, D. (2019, September 13). Heathrow protest fails to take off as drones ‘blocked by signal jammers’. Sky News. https://news.sky.com/story/heathrow-drone-protesters-blocked-by-signal-jamming-as-two-arrested-11808171