Available online at www.sciencedirect.comComputers & Industr.docx

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Computers & Industrial Engineering 54 (2008) 34–44
www.elsevier.com/locate/dsw
A quantitative model for aviation safety risk assessment
Huan-Jyh Shyur *
Department of Information Management, Tamkang University,
151 Ying-Chuan Road, Tamsui, Taipei, Taiwan
Received 2 August 2006; received in revised form 14 June
2007; accepted 14 June 2007
Available online 21 June 2007
Abstract
The objective of this research is to develop an analytic method
that uses data on both accident and safety indicators to
quantify the aviation risk which are caused by human errors. A
specified proportional hazard model considering the base-
line hazard function as a quadratic spline function has
investigated and demonstrated its applicability in aviation risk
assessment. The use of the proposed model allows investigation
of non-linear effects of aviation safety factors and flexible
assessment of aviation risk. A subset of data gathered from the
Fight Safety Management Information System (FSMIS)
developed by the office of the Taiwan Civil Aeronautics
Administration (CAA) was applied to accomplish this study.
The
results demonstrate that the proposed model is a more promising
approach with the potential of becoming very useful in
practice and leading to further generalization of aviation risk

analysis.
� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Risk assessment; Aviation safety; Human error;
Proportional hazard model
1. Introduction
As the worldwide air transportation traffic volume grows
rapidly, safety in aviation becomes a burning
problem over many countries today. Aviation accident may
result in human injury or even death. It influences
the reputation and the economy of the air transportation
industry of a country. According to the analysis of
Mineata (1997), when today’s accident rate is applied to the
traffic forecast for 2015, the result would be the
crashing of an airliner somewhere in the world almost every
week. Braithwaite, Caves, and Faulkner (1998)
stated that in order to achieve safety and reduce accident rate,
we must quantify risk and balance it with
appropriate safety measures.
In order to ensure the public safety and maintain a safe aviation
environment, developing an analytic
method that moves beyond the essential identification of risk
factors to assess the safety performance and dis-
cover the potential hazards of airlines is indispensable.
McFadden and Towell (1999) mentioned, while appre-
ciating the value of accident investigations in identifying the
cause and initiating corrective actions to prevent
future errors, that a fundamental shift in the emphasis to
‘‘proactive safety’’ would be necessary. To achieve
0360-8352/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cie.2007.06.032
* Tel.: +88 6226215656 2881.

E-mail address: [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
H.-J. Shyur / Computers & Industrial Engineering 54 (2008) 34–
44 35
‘‘proactive safety’’, an idea risk assessment tool should be
developed enabling an analyst to examine a wide
variety of accidents quickly, systematically, and
probabilistically and assisting a risk manager in priority set-
ting and policy decision making. However, only few attempts
have been made so far at how to analyze the
aviation risk systematically and quantitatively.
Risk assessment is a structured science-based process to
estimate the likelihood and severity of risk
with attendant uncertainty (Coleman & Marks, 1999). The most
obvious approach to study aviation risk
focused on analyzing the accident data. For example, Janic
(2000) and Lee (2006) treated the pattern of
accidents as a Possion process to assess the probability of future
events by using a sample of global
accident records. This approach neglects the ordinary safety
performance of the airlines, which may
influence the aviation safety environment directly. Civil
aviation is a complex mosaic of many varied,
yet interrelated human, technical, environmental, and
organizational factors that affects safety and sys-
tem performance. Aviation accidents result from multiple
contributing factors. Logan (1999) mentioned
that operational safety data such as aircraft reliability, flight
data records, employee safety reports,
enforcement information, inspector investigations or oversight
information were also essential to aviation
risk analysis.

The Airline Safety Assessment System, currently under
development by the Taiwan Civil Aeronautics
Administration (CAA), will contain indicators of air carrier
safety performance that can identify potential
problem areas for inspectors. The objective of this research is to
develop an analytic method that uses data
on both accident and safety performance to quantify the aviation
risk. Our approach takes into account
the more complex relationships among relevant aviation risk
contributing factors. In this study, risk involves
a measure of probability of the occurrence of a hazardous event
caused by human error. A specified propor-
tional hazard model considering the baseline hazard function as
a quadratic spline function has investigated
and demonstrated its applicability in aviation risk assessment. A
subset of data gathered from the Fight Safety
Management Information System (FSMIS) developed by the
office of the Taiwan Civil Aeronautics Admin-
istration (CAA) was remodeled to accomplish this study. The
results demonstrate that the proposed model is a
more promising approach with the potential of becoming very
useful in practice and leading to further gen-
eralization of aviation risk analysis.
Statistics indicate that more than 70% of aviation accidents are
related to human errors and 56% of world-
wide hull lose accidents are caused by flight crew errors
(McFadden, 1993; Boeing Commercial Airplane
Group, 2005). It has also been claimed that all accidents have
some forms of human error attached to their
causes (Braithwaite et al., 1998). Estimation of the human error
related risk in a given time interval that a
particular airline would be expected to have, upon adjusting for
the airline’s corresponding safety performance
indicators, could help to identify situations in need of

heightened level of surveillance by the safety inspectors.
2. Research methodology
There are two proposed approaches for assessing the aviation
risk and safety: The first one is looking at the
number of accidents and fatalities continuously for offering an
indicator on the improvement of the sector’s
safety. The second approach statistically models the occurrence
of air accidents over time by assuming the
accident events following Poisson process (Janic, 2000). Such a
process is based on the following assumptions:
• An event can occur at random and at any time.
• The numbers of events, which occur in non-overlapping
intervals are independent.
• The probability of an event occurring for a small interval Dt is
proportional to Dt and can be estimated by
kDt where, k is the hazard or failure rate.
According to the assumptions, the time interval between any
two consecutive events will follow an expo-
nential distribution, which is a fundamental model in parametric
survival analysis. The probability of the
occurrence of at least one accident in time t can be written as
PðT 6 tÞ¼ 1 � PðT > tÞ¼ 1 � e�kt; ð1Þ
36 H.-J. Shyur / Computers & Industrial Engineering 54 (2008)
34–44
where T is the random variable representing the time between
any two consecutive events and k is a constant.
If there are safety related factors upon which accident inter
arrival time may depend, it becomes of interest to
consider generalizations of the model to take account of the

dependent information. The above model ignores
the possible influence of safety factors to event inter arrival
time.
Regression models for survival analysis have been extensively
studied in the past 30 years. They allow the
hazard rate to be a function of the observed explanatory
variables (or covariates). Generally, regression mod-
els can be generally categorized in two classes. The first one is
called the parametric statistical model, which
assumes the shapes of time to event distributions are known.
McFadden (2003) used logistic regression model
to predict pilot-error accident and incident rates on an airline-
by-airline basis. However, when the survival
time data involve complex distributional shapes that are not
well-known or when the number of observations
is small making it difficult to test, the second model type of
survival analysis – semi-parametric or non-para-
metric statistical model appears to be an attractive method to
the parametric ones. The model is ‘‘distribution-
free’’ since no assumptions need to be made about the shapes of
time to event distributions. For example,
Cox’s proportional hazards (PH) model (Cox, 1972) is one of
the most famous semi-parametric or non-para-
metric statistical models for time-to-event data with explanatory
variables. It is widely applied in the medical
field. Recently, the model is also gaining acceptance in many
sectors, including reliability engineering, trans-
portation, and finance.
A log linear PH model is expressed as
kðtjzÞ¼ k0ðtÞ � ezb ð2Þ
where k(tjz) is the hazard rate at time t and covariate vector z,
k0(t) which is the modified multiplicatively by
covariates is referred to as the baseline hazard function, and b is

the regression coefficients vector. A PH model
is a class of models with the property that different individuals
have hazard functions that are proportional to
each other. That is, the ratio k(tjz1)/k(tjz2) of the hazard
functions for two individuals with different covariate
vectors z1 and z2 does not vary with time. In other words,
k(tjz1) is directly proportional to k(tjz2).
There are two unknown components in Eq. (2): the vector of
regression coefficients and the baseline hazard
function k0 (t). Cox (1972) uses an attractive approach, in
which a likelihood function that does not depend
upon k0(t) is obtained for. This function is referred to as a
partial likelihood function and is expressed as
LðbÞ
Yn
i¼1
expbziP
l2SðtiÞ
expbzl
ð3Þ
where, n is the number of observed failure times and S(ti) is the
risk set at time ti. This function can be max-
imized to give an estimate of b in the absence of any knowledge
on k0(t). The motivation for the likelihood
function is that given S(t) and given that a failure occurs at t,
the probability that the component i (i
2S(t)) fails is
kðtjziÞP
l2SðtÞ
kðtjzlÞ
¼

k0ðtÞ � expbziP
l2SðtÞ
k0ðtÞ � expbzl
¼
expbziP
l2SðtÞ
expbzl
: ð4Þ
Gill (1984) gave a discussion on how martingale approach could
be used to give a firm mathematical basis to
Cox proportional hazard model.
If we assume k0(t) = k0, (2) will reduce to an exponential
regression model. It is a special case of the pro-
portional hazard model where the base line hazard is specified
by a single parameter. The conditional density
function of t given z is
fðt; zÞ¼ k0ezb e�k0 e
zb t; ð5Þ
and the conditional probability of the occurrence of at least one
accident in time t for covariate z is given by
PðT 6 tÞ¼ 1 � e�
R t
0
kðsjzÞds ¼ 1 � e�k0 e
zbt ð6Þ
The maximum likelihood theory is used to evaluate the
unknown parameters of the above models. Consider n
independent observations distributed according to (2). Let ti be

the observed event inter arrival time with the
44 37
corresponding covariate vector zi = (z1i, z2i ,..., zsi) for the ith
observation. The natural logarithm of the like-
lihood function for this model is given by
ln Lðk0; bÞ¼ ln
Y
i
k0e
zib e�k0 e
zi b ti
!
¼ n � lnðk0Þþ
X
i
zib � k0
X
i
ezibti ð7Þ
This function can be maximized to give an estimate of k0 and b
by setting the first derivative of lnL(k0, b), with
respect to k0 and b, equal to zero and by solving the resulting
equations. Here,

o ln Lðk0; bÞ
ok0
¼
n
k0
�
X
i
ezibti ¼ 0 ð8Þ
o ln Lðk0; bÞ
obj
¼
X
zjið1 � ezi btiÞ¼ 0 ð9Þ
The standard likelihood approach outlined above does not
adequately take the advantage of the particular
structure of this model. However, for the specified proportional
hazard model, it can determine all the un-
knowns at once.
The Weibull distribution can be generated to the regression
situation essentially in the same way, when a
nonlinear expression for the baseline hazard rate function is
used. The hazard rate function under this condi-
tion is
kðtjzÞ¼ hcðtÞc�1ezb; ð10Þ
where both h and c are positive and are referred to as the scale
parameter and the shape parameter of the dis-
tribution, respectively. In our study, the baseline hazard
function k0 (t) is specified by a quadratic spline func-

tion to estimate the unknown underlying distribution. We use
the Heaviside function, where, U+ = U if U = 0
and U+ = 0 if U < 0 to create a spline function. The formula is
given by
k0ðtÞ¼
X2
n¼0
cnt
n þ
Xl
m¼1
hmðt � smÞ
2
þ ð11Þ
where l is the number of knots, sm is the location of knots, hm
is the added linear effect following knots, and cn
is the coefficient of the underlying base polynomial. Splines are
presented as a non-parametric function esti-
mating technique (Wegmen & Wright, 1983). A spline function
of degree m is a piecewise m-degree polynomial
with pieces joining at defined points, which are called ‘‘knots’’.
A detailed discussion of spline functions is gi-
ven in our previous paper (Shyur, Elsayed, & Luxhoj, 1999). To
estimate the parameters of the spline function
and the coefficients of the covariates, a general likelihood
function is used. Since the baseline hazard rates are
always non-negative, we must ensure that the results of the
estimation will satisfy the constraints. The details
of the proposed model will be provided at a later point in this
paper.
3. Data description

A subset of data gathered from the Flight Safety Management
Information System (FSMIS) developed by
the Taiwan Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) office was
remodeled to accomplish this study. The
FSMIS is an analytical tool intended to support CAA inspection
activities, which contains data related to
the surveillance records of air operators, maintenance facilities,
and manufacture of aircraft parts and acci-
dents/incidents investigation reports.
Any member of a set of human actions that exceeds some limit
of acceptability will cause human error
(Latorella & Prabhu, 2000). The main goal of this research is to
develop a model to provide relative risk prob-
ability inference and trend analysis among different kinds of
human errors, which may cause any major avi-
ation events. Here, a major event is defined as a flight event,
which may lead any person to suffer death or
serious injury, or the aircraft to receive substantial damage. The
risk of this kind of event is much more essen-
tial to be managed. For this reason, the analysis focuses only on
the major event, but not all kinds of accidents
and incidents. We analyze the aviation safety risk using a
sample of 61 major accident records for the period
34–44
from January 2003 to December 2004. The provided database
contains a general cause category for each acci-
dent/incident. The aviation accidents/incidents that were coded
as (1) improper maintenance, (2) operator
deficiency, (3) crew induced, (4) operation and maintenance, (5)
inadequate maintenance, and (6) crew, ground
crew, and ground handle system were analyzed in this paper. All

the events are related to human error.
According to the accident/incident records, the time between
every two consecutive events for each cause cat-
egory and airline can be simply calculated.
Based on the FSMIS database, numerous safety performance
indicators for signaling the potential problem
areas considered for inspection are currently defined by CAA
(Shyur, 2006). These indicators assist in diag-
nosing an airline’s ‘‘profile’’ compared with others in the same
peer class and provide insights as to whether
an airline is more or less likely to undertake unsafe practices.
The airline safety performances influence the
whole aviation safety environment directly and assist in
diagnosing the profile of an airline. So the safety per-
formances are explored as the effecting factors or explanatory
factors of the aviation risk. Three integrated
major corresponding performance indicators are considered in
this study – airworthiness surveillance (AS),
operations surveillance (OS), and frequency of general events
(FE). Surveillance is one of the most significant
duties of the CAA office in its larger responsibility of assuring
air transportation safety. According to the
safety report published by FAA (Federal Aviation
Administration, 1997), the information on factors that
could affect airline safety practices can be found in the
inspection and surveillance reports on air carrier
operations.
The CAA monitors the airworthiness-related activities
performed within an air carrier using various sur-
veillance techniques. The airworthiness surveillance activities
conducted are based on the risks associated with
the scope and depth of airworthiness authority assigned to the
airline, and are performed against the CAA
approved airworthiness process manual of that carrier. The CAA

is also responsible for monitoring all phases
of air carrier operations including: training programs and
records; base and station facilities; airports and
route systems. One of the limitations of the FSMIS surveillance
database is that it does not use a quantitative
way to measure the surveillance result.
The recorded surveillance report in FSMIS contains a result
category for each check item, for instance, S
represents that the check item has satisfied the certain
requirements and F means there are some findings in
this item, etc. For quantifying the surveillance result, each code
was assigned a weighted score according to
its order of severity. A ratio scale approach, the Analytic
Hierarch Process (AHP), was conducted to make
the decision. AHP was proposed by Saaty as a method of
solving socio-economic decision making problems
and has found its widest applications in multi-criteria decision
making (Satty, 1980). Using the weighted
scores, the surveillance indicators were measured by the
percentage of unfavorable surveillance records asso-
ciated with a given smoothed time period. The exact calculation
formula is
Unfavorable rate ¼
PN
i¼1
ðwi � niÞ
W � N
ð12Þ
where
W: predefined maximum weighted score,
N: total number of inspections during time T,
wi: weighted score for the result i of individual inspection item,
i is the result code,

ni: result i of individual inspection item during time T.
Table 1 contains a sample of the summary of input data from
FSMIS for air carrier A. For data security,
only 10 records are shown.
4. Application of the methodology
Our approach takes into account the more complex relationships
among relevant aviation risk factors.
Using the models presented, risk has been assessed as the
probability of occurrence of a specific type of human
error related aviation accident. The potential human error
related risk could be identified and monitored
timely. The results can provide better references to the civil
aviation communities to manage the aviation-
safety risk, thus corrective action can be taken to reduce the
occurrence of aviation accidents.
Table 1
Sample FSMIS ‘‘Organized’’ data
Air carrier A
Major event
cause
Improper maintenance
Event no. Time elapsed before next
event (days)
Airworthiness
performance

Operation
performance
Frequency of general accidents per
thousand landings
1 196 0.01556 0.00203 2.116995
2 10 0.01613 0.00358 1.770303
3 68 0.01284 0.0054 2.971014
4 78 0.00756 0.00117 1.461988
5 311 0.01735 0.00245 2.705822
6 3 0.00649 0 0.605938
7 14 0.00629 0.00399 0.807918
8 28 0.01055 0.0012 0.420698
9 29 0.02442 0.00374 0.386453
10 20 0.01144 0.00118 0.420062
44 39
4.1. Model development
Consider n independent category k events distributed according
to (2). Let T ki refers to the time between the
ith and (i�1)th events. The covariates ðz1i ; z2i ; z3i Þ
represent the unfavorable rates of AS, OS, and FE measured
in the ith time interval. Since the time interval is not a constant,
the event frequency is normalized by thou-
sands of flight landings. The likelihood for this model is given
by
Lk ¼
Yn
i¼1
fðT ki ; ziÞ¼

Yn
i¼1
k0ðT ki Þe
zi�bk exp �ezib
k
Z T ki
0
k0ðtÞdt
!
ð13Þ
where, zi � bk ¼ z1i b
k
1 þ z2i b
k
2 þ z3i b
k
3, for i = 1–n. The log-likelihood function provides more
flexibility in the
parameter estimation for the spline function, k0(t), in the
extreme tails and in estimating the coefficients of
the covariates. The natural logarithm of the likelihood function
used in this paper is
l ¼ ln L ¼
Xn
i¼1
ðzi � bk þ ln k0ðT ki Þ� e
zi�bk

Z T ki
0
k0ðtÞdtÞ: ð14Þ
Because the baseline hazard rates are always nonnegative, we
must make sure that the resulting estimate will
satisfy this constraint. To approximate the maximum value of
the log-likelihood, the Generalized Reduced
Gradient (GRG) algorithm (Lasdon, Waren, Jain, & Ratner,
1978) has been applied to obtain the optimized
solution. The GRG solves a sequence of reduced problems by a
gradient method to prevent a more complex
searching problem. The algorithm has been shown to be
efficient and reliable when solving small to moderate
nonlinear programming problems. To estimate the spline
function, Etezadi-Amoli and Ciampi (1987) suggest
starting with zero knots and constant hazard. The number of
knots is increased, adding one knot at a time,
until no improvement in the fit is obtained.
To estimate the baseline spline functions, k0(t), models with a
different number of knots are created. Results
show that one knot spline functions can provide good
approximations of the hazard functions for all analyzed
data sets. The created models related to air carrier A are shown
in Table 2. Three covariates are introduced to
2 sets of accident/incident data for air carrier ‘‘A’’ since this
carrier contains only two types of major events in
the analyzed time period. The standard errors (SE) of the
estimates of the proposed model coefficients are pro-
vided in the parentheses. We use the information matrix only to
determine standard errors for regression
parameters. In this case, we found that the log-likelihood is
quite insensitive to the changes in the position
of the knots. The situation will be reflected by ‘‘ridges’’ in the

likelihood surface and a nearly singular Hessian
matrix (Ciampi & Etezadi-Amoli, 1984). Therefore, we kept the
position of the knots fixed when calculating
the information matrix of b1, b2, and b3.
Table 2
Results of proposed risk assessment model for air carrier ‘‘A’’
Parameters Major event cause
Improper maintenance induced Crew induced
c0 0.049868021 0.0067334
c1 �0.000260578 0.0000094
c2 �0.000092883 *0
h1 0.000102162 *0
s1 5.38 15.35
b1 (SE) 0.00440092(0.0028) 20.703049(0.76)
b2 (SE) 0.00139579(0.00035) 0.000013(0.0000087)
b3 (SE) 0.00973966(0.00065) *0
Log-likelihood �48.54 �29.43
34–44
According to the results, it appears that the estimated hazards
increase as the unfavorable rate of airwor-
thiness surveillance and operation surveillance increase, with
coefficient estimates of b1 = 0.0044 and
b2 = 0.0014 for the improper maintenance induced event, and b1
= 4.4477 and b2 = 0.0096 for the crew
induced event. In this case, it can also be noted that the
estimated effect of airworthiness performance is stron-
ger than the operation performance since b1 > b2. Moreover, it
can assess the probability of an occurrence of

any kind of major event by providing the values of air carrier
performances (covariates). The corresponding
mathematical function of risk assessment is
Risk ¼ PðT 6 tÞ¼ 1 � e�
R t
0
kðsjzÞds ¼ 1 � e�e
zb
R t
0
k0ðsÞds ð15Þ
Fig. 1 illustrates the probabilities of the occurrence of at least
one major event within the time period t for an
air carrier ‘‘A’’ when the same safety performances existing in
the current will continue to exist in the future. In
this case, we set AS = 0.01144, OS = 0.00118, and FE =
0.420062. According to the risk assessment function,
the probabilities rise over time until the next event. For
example, the probability of at least one major event
caused by improper maintenance is about 0.372 by 10 days,
0.654 by 30 days, and 0.752 by 60 days. The prob-
abilistic risk inferred by the models can be further used to
facilitate the organization to identify relative haz-
ardous human error. For example, as Fig. 1 indicates, the extent
of risk can be compared in the order:
improper maintenance > crew induced > others. Therefore, the
inspection plan or prevention action should
be taken to strengthen the routine monitoring for the two types
of human error risk especially for the impro-
per maintenance problem in order to prevent the occurrence of
the corresponding events.
0

0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
The time until the main event (days)
P
ro
ba
bi
li
ty
o
f
on
e
m
ai
n
ev
en
t w

it
hi
n
th
e
ti
m
e
t
Improper Maintenance Crew Induced
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Fig. 1. Risk assessment for air carrier A.
44 41
In our developed model, the covariates are measured as
unfavorable inspection rate and the frequency of
general event, so the risk increases if the performance of the
related effecting operations is not right. On the
contrary, if there is improvement in performance, then the
aviation risk can be reduced. Briefly, the results of
the relationship of the covariates and the human error induced
risk can direct the inspectors to focus on more
related or important aviation operations inspection in order to
control the hazardous risk in the future.
4.2. Comparing models

Although we wish to summarize our risk assessment with a
single model, there are usually other choices to
be made. Kullback and Leibler (1951) addressed such issues and
developed a measure, the Kullback–Leibler
information, to represent the information loss when
approximating reality. Akaike (1974) proposed using
Kullback–Leibler information for model selection. He
established a relationship between the maximum like-
lihood and the Kullback–Leibler information. In essence, he
developed an information criterion to estimate
the Kullback–Leibler information, Akaike’s information
criterion (AIC), which is defined as
Table
Result
Param
Scale p
Shape
b1
b2
b3
Log-lik
Table
Akaike
AIC
Impro
Crew i
AIC ¼�2ðlog�likelihoodÞþ 2k ð16Þ
where, k is the number of estimated parameters included in the
model. For a given data set, the log-likelihood
of the model reflects the overall fit of the model. The AIC
penalizes for the addition of parameters, and thus

selects a model that fits well but with a minimum number of
parameters. The model with the lowest AIC being
the best model among all models specified for the data at hand,
when it is compared to the AIC of a series of
models specified a priori.
In this paper, two semi-parametric methods for estimating the
function form of aviation safety risk assess-
ment have been investigated to compare with the proposed
approach. One is the exponential regression and
the other is the Weibull regression model. Using the identical
data sets, the maximum likelihood approach was
also conducted to evaluate the unknown parameters for the
alternative models. Table 3 shows the estimation
results. The AIC statistics are presented in Table 4.
In general, the proposed models tend to provide better fit in
both the given data sets with the advantage of
being ‘‘distribution-free’’. Comparing all the alternative models
including the Poisson process technique, a
graphical analysis of the risk estimation curves for each of the
models under two different levels of safety per-
formance for air carrier ‘‘A’’ was performed. The risk
assessment models consider safety performance indica-
tors as the contributing factors of aviation events. Figs. 2–5
show that the proposed model better represents
the effects of safety performances on aviation risk no matter
what type of human error related risk has been
3
s of semi-parametric models for air carrier ‘‘A’’
eters Improper maintenance induced Crew induced
Exponential regression Weibull regression Exponential
regression Weibull regression

arameter 0.01321 0.033877 0.007153 0.009374
parameter N/A 0.805614 N/A 0.941930
�0 �0 23.442 24.40633
0.00024 0.131236 0.013409 0.452157
�0 �0 �0 �0
elihood �53.26 �52.79 �33.46 �33.44
4
’s information criterion of the hazard regression models
Proposed model Exponential regression Weibull regression
per maintenance induced 113.08 114.52 115.58
nduced 74.86 74.92 76.88
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8

0.9
1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Time
R
is
k
Proposed model Poisson processPoisson process
Exponential Regression Weibull Regression
Fig. 2. Risk assessment for improper maintenance induced event
with low AS and OS (AS = 0.01144, OS = 0.00118, and FE =
0.420062).
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6

0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Time
R
is
k
Proposed model Poisson process
Fig. 3. Risk assessment for improper maintenance induced event
with high AS and OS (AS = 0.5, OS = 0.5, and FE = 0.420062).
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5

0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Time
R
is
k
Fig. 4. Risk assessment for crew induced event with low AS and
OS (AS = 0.01144, OS = 0.00118, and FE = 0.420062).
34–44
0
0.1
0.2

0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Time
R
is
k
Fig. 5. Risk assessment for crew induced event with high AS
and OS (AS = 0.1, OS = 0.1, and FE = 0.420062).
44 43
studied. Similar results were also appeared when we studied the
accident and safety data of the other five air

carriers.
5. Conclusions
In the past, only accident or fatality data were investigated and
used to measure the risk or/and safety level
of airlines. This is just a reactive way to manage the aviation
risk. However, commercial aviation is a complex
mosaic of many varied, yet interrelated human, technical,
environmental, and organizational factors that
affect safety and system performance. The possible influencing
factors should be included while assessing risk.
The application of the hazard regression models to the analysis
of aviation risk has not been previously
reported in the research literature.
This paper proposed a new quantitative methodology for the
assessment of risk in civil aviation. The spline
function is used to present the baseline hazard function. Our
proposed approach allows finding fundamental
cause of human error related accidents through the analysis of
operational safety data. The modified propor-
tional hazards model takes into account the relationships among
relevant aviation risk factors. Furthermore,
the dependence of the aviation risk on operational performance
of airlines can also be measured. Finally, the
results of the case study demonstrate that the proposed model is
a more promising regression model with the
potential of becoming very useful in practice.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Taiwan CAA for their
assistance in problem formulation and data
collection.

References
Akaike, H. (1974). A new look at the statistical model
identification. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, AC,
19, 716–723.
Boeing Commercial Airplane Group. (2005). Statistical
summary of commercial jet aircraft accident – worldwide
operations, 1959–2004.
Seattle.
Braithwaite, R. E., Caves & Faulkner, J. P. E. (1998). Australia
aviation safety-observations from the ‘lucky’ country. Journal
of Air
Transport Management, 4(1), 55–62.
Ciampi, A., & Etezadi-Amoli, J. (1984). A general model for
testing the proportional hazards and the accelerated failure time
hypotheses
in the analysis of censored survival data with covariates.
Communications in Statistics Part—A Theory and Methods, 79,
651–667.
Coleman, M. E., & Marks, H. M. (1999). Qualitative and
quantitative risk assessment. Food Control, 10, 289–297.
Cox, D. R. (1972). Regression models and life tables. Journal of
Royal Statistical Society, 34, 187–208.
Etezadi-Amoli, J., & Ciampi, A. (1987). Extended hazard
regression for censored survival data with covariates: A spline
approximation for
the baseline hazard function. Biometrics, 43, 181–192.
34–44

Federal Aviation Administration. (1997). Safety reports-
aviation safety data accessibility study index: Safety data.
Technical report.
Gill, R. D. (1984). Understanding Cox’s regression model: A
martingale approach. Journal of the American Statistical
Association, 79,
441–447.
Janic, M. (2000). An assessment of risk and safety in civil
aviation. Journal of Air Transport Management, 6, 43–50.
Kullback, S., & Leibler, R. A. (1951). On information and
sufficiency. Annuals of Mathematics and Statistics, 22, 79–86.
Lasdon, L. S., Waren, A. D., Jain, A., & Ratner, M. (1978).
Design and testing of a generalized reduced gradient code for
nonlinear
programming. ACM Transactions Math Software, 4, 34–50.
Latorella, K. A., & Prabhu, P. V. (2000). A review of human
error in aviation maintenance and inspection. Industrial
Ergonomics, 26,
133–161.
Lee, W. K. (2006). Risk assessment modeling in aviation safety
management. Journal of Air Transport Management, 12, 267–
273.
Logan, T. J. (1999). Trend toward wider sharing of safety data
is resisted by industry concerns. ICAO Journal, 54(1), 7–9.
McFadden, K. L. (1993). An empirical investigation of the
relationship between alcohol and drug-related motor vehicle
convictions and
pilot flying performance. Ph.D. thesis, University of Texas at
Arlington.
McFadden, K. L. (2003). Risk models for analyzing pilot-error
at US airlines: A comparative safety study. Computers and
Industrial

Engineering, 44, 581–593.
McFadden, K. L., & Towell, E. R. (1999). Aviation human
factors: A framework for the new millennium. Journal of Air
Transport
Management, 5, 177–184.
Mineata, N. Y. (1997). Avoiding Aviation Gridlock: A
consensus for change, Technical report, National Civil Aviation
Review
Commission.
Satty, T. L. (1980). The analytic hierarchy process. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Shyur, H. J. (2006). The study of operation and airworthiness
risk management decision support system for air operator.
Technical report.
Shyur, H. J., Elsayed, E. A., & Luxhoj, J. T. (1999). A general
hazard regression model for accelerated life testing. Annals of
Operations
Research, 91, 263–280.
Wegmen, E. J., & Wright, I. W. (1983). Splines in statistics.
Journal of the American Statistical Association, 78, 351–365.
A quantitative model for aviation safety risk
assessmentIntroductionResearch methodologyData
descriptionApplication of the methodologyModel
developmentComparing
modelsConclusionsAcknowledgementsReferences
Identifying knowledge demands and professional skill
sets for employment within the aviation security
environment: a qualitative inquiry of aviation
security professionals

Jon M. Loffi & Timm J. Bliss & Chad L. Depperschmidt
Received: 8 March 2013 /Accepted: 1 April 2013 /Published
online: 14 April 2013
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract As the world observed the morning of September 11,
2001, it witnessed an
event that changed the world. This event introduced the world
to asymmetrical
warfare, as a relatively small number of committed individuals
transformed four
U.S. commercial airplanes into missiles and committed mass
murder of innocent
people in America’s homeland. These attacks, universally,
focused the need for better
security practices in order to mitigate the risks of those
intending to do harm to the
aviation industry. In order to improve security practices in the
field of aviation
security, this research study sought to identify a body of
knowledge or common skill
sets that can assist the aviation security professional in the
effectiveness of mitigating
security threats in the U.S. civil aviation network. This
qualitative study conducted
detailed personal interviews with ten aviation security
professionals in the private and
governmental sectors to identify knowledge demands and
essential professional skill
sets needed for employment in the aviation security
environment. The analysis of the
data identified seven different knowledge demands or skill sets.
These seven knowl-
edge demands or skill sets included: behavioral profiling, risk

management, leader-
ship, critical thinking, terrorism, airport environment, and
aviation law.
Keywords Aviation security knowledge demands . Aviation
security skill sets
Introduction
From the early beginnings of “controllable-powered” flight by
the Wright brothers in
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903; air
transportation has had a
significant impact on our daily lives (Bilstein 2001). During the
past century, aviation
J Transp Secur (2013) 6:235–256
DOI 10.1007/s12198-013-0114-2
J. M. Loffi (*) : T. J. Bliss : C. L. Depperschmidt
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
has brought to man the ability to traverse over land and sea at
speeds not imagined in
the days of the Wright brothers. Aviation has evolved into a
very effective mode of
transportation, which brings financial and social stability to the
world (Price and
Forrest 2009).
However, aviation has also brought disaster and terror to the
forefront. The
technology enjoyed by the advent of the airplane seems to be a

two-edged sword.
The physicist C.P. Snow says about technology, “. . . is a queer
thing. It brings you
great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the
other” (Schneier 2003,
p. 101). Seemingly, terror has worked in the background of
aviation almost since the
inception of the industry, as indicated by all of the documented
occurrences since the
first hijacking in 1931. Civil aviation has historically been a
productive target for
terrorists. Airports and aircraft alike have been a convenient
medium for criminal
activity. This has been evidenced by terrorists typically gaining
geopolitical attention
to their cause by sabotaging and downing aircraft (Price and
Forrest 2009).
September 11, 2001, brought the reality of terrorism to the U.S.
homeland. The
horrific acts Americans were accustomed to watching on
television taking place in
distant lands were now on U.S. soil. The medium of that event
came in the form of
four U.S. airlines being transformed into weapons of mass
destruction by a deter-
mined group of radical terrorists. This act resulted in the
destruction of the World
Trade Center and significant damage to the Pentagon (Sweet
2009). As a result, it is
imperative that the U.S. government protects the flying public
and the homeland of
the U.S.
The mainstream media defines terrorism as, “acts of politically
motivated violence

perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups
or clandestine
agents” (Thomas 2008, Vol. 1, p. 98). While the most
devastating attack was
perpetrated by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, the aviation
industry has been
affected by this terrorism phenomenon by groups seeking
specific political goals,
be they demanding change or release of political prisoners, and
by some groups with
seemingly no clear objectives. Consequently, aviation will
likely remain in the
forefront as a viable target for terrorists and it will not soon go
away.
The aviation industry is a complex system of systems, but its
infrastructure
primarily consists of aircraft operations, airports, and
supporting agencies. Each
system segment of the aviation industry contains strengths and
weaknesses. Each
segment has the potential for corruption and is vulnerable to
intentional harmful
attacks. The segment of aviation largely affected by potential
terrorist threats is the
commercial transportation sector. This segment is comprised
mostly of commercial
passenger operations, cargo, and the physical facilities of
operations associated with
these activities. The need for security in these aviation
segments is obvious; however,
the aviation security industry has been criticized for not getting
it right. The reasons
for terrorism do not change—the tactics change. In order to
achieve an agenda for a
security problem, and create sensible security, the issues should

be approached as a
social problem. Additionally, the agendas of all the players
associated in the security
industry need to be understood (Schneier 2003).
The protection of aviation should be a national priority. The
U.S. government and
its security forces had very little knowledge to protect aviation
from terrorism on
September 11, 2001 (Price and Forrest 2009). Security measures
always seem to be
reactive and always one event behind; therefore, a more in-
depth research focus
236 J.M. Loffi et al.
should be implemented to stay ahead of the game in anticipation
of the next move by
those intending to do harm to the flying public. A new paradigm
needs to exist.
Identification of knowledge demands and professional skill sets
that can assist the
aviation security professional in identifying and understanding
terrorist agendas and
tactics are essential in protecting the U.S. aviation industry.
The fundamental purpose of this qualitative research was to
identify these knowl-
edge demands and essential professional skill sets by
conducting detailed personal
interviews with ten aviation security professionals in both the
private and govern-
mental sectors. Aviation security experts across a broad
spectrum of disciplines can

provide a rich source of data to meet the desired knowledge
demands and skill sets
sought by the aviation security industry.
Methodology
The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify knowledge
demands and
essential professional skill sets needed for employment in the
aviation security
environment by addressing the following research question:
& What are the basic knowledge demands and essential
professional skill sets
needed for employment within the aviation security
environment?
The research sample
A purposeful sample procedure was used by the researchers.
Purposeful sampling
yields insights and in-depth understanding and not necessarily
empirical generaliza-
tions (Patton 2002). The researchers sought to locate
professional experts actively
working in the field of aviation security. Some of the
participants were known to the
researchers and some were obtained by a snowball sampling
strategy.
The research sample included ten individuals from the aviation
security environ-
ment. Each participant was interviewed and selected based on
their professional
knowledge concerning aviation security and their involvement
and participation

within this environment. Purposeful sampling allowed for
sampling across various
locations within the U.S. and in other countries.
Although the participants were all involved in the field of
aviation security
there were demographic differences among them. These
differences included: (a)
which sector of aviation security they were employed or
associated, (b) nation-
ality, and (c) length of experience in the field. Table 1 is an
illustration of the
participant sample.
Permission to perform this research study was approved by the
Institutional
Review Board at Oklahoma State University (IRB application
number: ED 1245).
Research instrument
An interview protocol guide was developed as suggested by
Patton (2002). Potential
research participants were identified by the researchers’
professional contacts and
further snowballing sampling techniques where participants who
were interviewed
Identifying knowledge demands and professional skill 237
would recommend others to be interviewed (Bogdan and Bilklen
2003). A recording
procedure was established, the interview questionnaire and
consent forms were

published and the time constraints met the predicted
expectations. The research
instrument asked participants seven questions. The interview
questions were intended
to achieve the following:
1. Identify specific information about the qualifications of the
interviewee.
2. Determine knowledge demands and skill sets needed for
employment in the
aviation security environment.
Validity and reliability
For this research, the use of triangulation was utilized to add to
its validity or
credibility. The aviation security professionals came from three
basic categories, in
that, some were from consulting businesses in the private
sector, some were from the
actual practice of aviation security in the governmental sector,
and finally some were
from academia who authored text books in the field or were
teaching professionals
engaged in homeland security and military affairs. Additionally,
research regarding
current trends in aviation security was checked against the
opinions of those
interviewed for further validation of the data.
Interview questions were drafted and tested prior to the
interviews of the partic-
ipants. Practice interviews on three persons who had knowledge
of the issues of
aviation security were conducted by the researchers to

determine if the questions
would produce the desired result. Testing and standardizing the
research instrument
minimized threats to validity (Fraenkel and Wallen 2006). Once
the interview ques-
tions were refined and tested, the actual interview process was
scheduled for the
participants.
Data collection
In the summer of 2012, the researchers conducted interviews
with all ten participants.
Due to geographic challenges, not all participants could be
interviewed in person;
therefore, four participants were interviewed in person, three
participants were
interviewed using Skype, and three participants were
interviewed by telephone. A
verbatim transcription of the interviews was completed by the
researchers after
conducting the interviews. To ensure anonymity, each person
interviewed was
Table 1 Participant backgrounds
Participant background
Participant #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10
Aviation x x x x x x x x x x
Security x x x x x x x x x x
Government x x x x x x

Private x x
Academia x x
assigned a participant number for identification. Each
participant in this study
provided their own unique perspective of the issues in aviation
security from a real-
world or pragmatic point of view. The validity of these findings
is found within the
information richness of the selected participants and the
analytical capabilities of the
researchers rather than the size of the sample. The data
extracted from the interviews
came from a field of participants who were highly acclaimed in
the area of aviation
security and illuminated the skill sets needed for employment in
the aviation security
environment. Each participant had extensive knowledge of the
inner-workings and
application of aviation security practices from a pragmatic
approach. According to
Patton (2002), the very essence of qualitative research is its
candidness and the close
contact the researcher has with the issue being investigated and
in-depth interviewing.
Below is a “snap-shot” of each participants qualifications and
experience of
specific issues being investigated by the researchers. The
participant data listed was
extracted from the first three interview questions of the

questionnaire; which asked
each participant’s career history, educational level, professional
training, and overall
experiences involving aviation security.
Participants’ qualifications and experience
Participant 1: Employed in the aviation security, dignitary
protection, and law
enforcement sectors. Participant 1 works in aviation security
and
has over 20 years of experience in law enforcement, and
conducts
several training classes annually in aviation security.
Participant 1 is
currently completing a graduate degree in Aviation Education.
Participant 2: Employed in the Aviation Security and Military
Officer sectors.
Participant 2 supervises a field office and has been conferred
with
several graduate degrees, and considered ABD in doctoral
studies.
This participant possesses extensive experience in aviation
security
and has been active in the development of aviation security
policies
and procedures.
Participant 3: Employed in the Aviation Security and Explosives
Detection sectors.
Participant 3 designs and builds explosive detection equipment
in the
private sector for civil airports and for the Department of
Defense for
military operations on an international basis. Holds a graduate

degree
in forensic and analytical chemistry from a European university
and
has been conferred with a Ph.D. from an American university.
This
participant travels abroad extensively consulting on aviation
security
issues in explosives.
Participant 4: Employed in the Aviation and Aviation Security
Consulting sectors.
Participant 4 has developed several aviation and aviation
security
consulting companies. Internationally renowned aviation
security
expert. Former police officer in Europe with extensive law en-
forcement experience in transportation security. Has published
several articles in aviation and aviation security. Co-Authored a
text book in aviation security management. Has appeared on
numerous documentaries concerning aviation security, and has
served as a consultant to private corporations, the U.S.
government,
and foreign governments on the issues of aviation security and
safety. Has been conferred with a graduate degree and is
completing
a Ph.D.
Participant 5: Employed in the Aviation Security, Diplomatic
and Homeland Secu-
rity, and military sectors. Participant 5 has over 20 years of
experi-

ence in aviation security, diplomatic and national defense
sectors in a
foreign country. Participant 5 now works in a security
consulting
company conducting international training classes in terrorism
and
aviation security. Developed graduate studies abroad for a
major
university in security measures.
Participant 6: Employed in the Higher Education and Private
Business sectors.
Participant 6 has a Ph.D. and teaches at a major American
university.
Has authored many text books in aviation security and aviation
security management.
Participant 7: Employed in the Higher Education Military
University sector. Partic-
ipant 7 has a Ph.D. from a European university in International
Re-
lations with an emphasis in Aviation Security. Has been
imbedded
with the military in theater overseas conducting research. Has
been
recognized as an aviation security expert worldwide and teaches
graduate classes in terrorism and aviation security for the
military
department.
Participant 8: Employed in the Aviation Military and
International Aviation Secu-
rity sectors. Participant 8 has over of 20 years of aviation
experience
in the U.S. military. Experience includes AWACS operations
and air

traffic control. Has worked internationally in ICAO. Has
worked
specifically in aviation security pre-September 11, 2001. Has
conducted numerous classes at the federal level in aviation
security
and works in a position involving Homeland Security. Holds a
Bachelor degree in aviation from a U.S. university.
Participant 9: Employed in the military and special operations,
law enforcement
(federal and local), and aviation security (domestic and
international)
sectors. Participant 9 is a retired special forces commander with
extensive experience worldwide. Participant 9 holds a graduate
de-
gree in terrorism, and thesis work was in aviation security.
Participant
9 worked at the federal level in aviation security pre-September
11,
2001. Has extensive experience in law enforcement. Has been
rec-
ognized as an aviation security expert and has appeared in many
televised documentaries on aviation security. Has extensive
experi-
ence in “Red Team Operations” testing aviation security
domestically
and abroad.
Participant 10: Employed in the Aviation Security, Military, and
Law Enforcement
sectors. Participant 10 is currently working in the field of
aviation
security. Has been conferred with a graduate degree in security
administration. Has served in two branches of the military and
was
a law enforcement investigator in the military. Has extensive

experi-
ence in aviation security on a worldwide level and has
conducted
numerous “Red Team Operations” in aviation security. Has
testified
as an expert witness before Congress on the events of
September 11,
2001. Has been recognized as a leading expert internationally in
aviation security and has appeared in televised documentaries
on
aviation security.
Analysis of the data
The data analysis was conducted using NVivo 10, a
computerized software
program designed for use in qualitative research. The digital
recordings of the
interviews were transcribed and exported into the NVivo 10
program for coding. A
code list was determined and each interview was appraised in
detail using the
appropriate code linked to the text in the transcriptions. After
completion of the
coding of the transcribed interviews, specific data from these
files were extracted
and reports were then generated which catalogued the data.
From the data specific
recommendations as to knowledge demands and professional
skill sets, were then
created by the researchers. A comparison of these reports was

triangulated to
identify similarities and agreement among the participants.
Those areas where
triangulation was the greatest were noted for maximum
consideration. Special
attention was given to those areas of data that the participants
agreed upon or
had similar meaning. The participant’s responses that had
similar meaning or were
similar topics were given a percentage ranking of agreement
among all of the
participants.
Findings
The findings for this study resulted in over 200 pages of
transcribed interviews
from ten aviation security professionals. The participants were
individuals who
actually worked or participated in the practice of aviation
security and were not
in executive positions within their respective firms or
employment sectors. The
analysis of data included a process of coding and categorizing
to identify any
emerging knowledge demands or skill sets. The knowledge
demands and skill
sets which emerged from this research provided a rich resource
for aviation
security professionals. Additionally, the participant’s
perspectives on this subject
provided a clear picture of their individual opinions of the U.S.
aviation
security system. The participant responses were then placed into
nodes or
categories as they emerged from the analysis. Seven knowledge

demands or
skill sets emerged from the analysis of data. These seven were:
behavioral
profiling, risk management, leadership, critical thinking,
terrorism, airport envi-
ronment, and aviation law.
The purpose of the first three interview questions was to gain
insight of the
participants experience and experiences in aviation security.
The remaining three
questions were designed to probe the aviation security issues,
and address the
research question.
Interview question 4 Question four was designed to determine if
the participants
based on his/her knowledge and experience in the aviation
security industry was aware if the employment qualifications
for the aviation security industry had changed from what they
were prior to September 11, 2001.
Five of the ten participants (50 %) agreed the employment
qualifications have changed, three of the participants agreed
they have not seen a change in the requirements, and two of
the participants had no knowledge of the employment re-
quirements. The two participants who did not know the
employment qualifications were not in a professional position
to know what the employment qualifications specified either
before or after the events of September 11, 2001. The five
participants who knew that employment qualifications had

changed cited professionalism, background, and a trend to
not hire persons exclusively from either a military or a law
enforcement background as a few examples of change. One
of these five participants said the changes in the employment
qualifications have worsened stating that the Federal Govern-
ment only looked for persons to service a dysfunctional
bureaucracy.
Interview question 5 The fifth interview question was designed
to discover the
knowledge demands a prospective employee should pos-
sess for employment in the aviation security sector. All
of the participant’s responses (100 %) were similar or
very close in their description of the knowledge demands
required to be effective in aviation security. These re-
sponses included: a good knowledge of the technology
and the airport environment, behavioral profiling, histor-
ical knowledge of aviation security and terrorism, risk
management, and knowledge of the law and the code of
Federal regulations.
Aviation security can be applied to many areas of the
aviation industry. Governmental and private sectors spe-
cifically have their own knowledge demands. Each of the
participants recognized and discussed the differences and
cautioned that the recommended knowledge demands are
wide-ranging and should be applicable to aviation secu-
rity from a broad perspective regardless of the sector. The
discussions regarding this topic seemed to generate a
feeling of protecting individual areas of responsibility or
“turf.”
Interview question 6 The sixth interview question provided
insight for what
professional skill sets a prospective employee should
possess for employment in the aviation security industry

today. All of the participant’s responses (100 %) identi-
fied the same areas considered essential as skill sets.
These included leadership skills, risk management skills,
critical thinking skills, and communication skills; and
were all considered essential for a good aviation security
professional.
Evaluation and analysis of findings
The research question addressed by this study was based on the
central question of
determining the basic knowledge demands and essential
professional skill sets needed
for employment within the aviation security environment. Seven
knowledge demands
or skill sets were identified by participants, which considered
them crucial to what
should be considered for employment in aviation security
environment. The follow-
ing is an evaluation of each knowledge demand or professional
skill set.
Behavioral profiling
The technique of behavioral profiling was cited as a knowledge
demand considered
important to effective aviation security. Seven of the
participants (70 %) cited
behavioral profiling as critical for inclusion as a knowledge
demand. Behavioral
profiling in the U.S. aviation security system has been

somewhat ignored or not
employed properly. As one participant stated,
The only thing that ever had me concerned about getting caught
when I was
doing red team stuff, was a human being that was actually
looking for the
terrorist profiles and that is where the entire focus should be—
is looking for the
people and not spending billions and billions of dollars on
technology, which a
freshman in high school can figure his way to get around. That
is the single
biggest flaw in security (Participant 10, Interview response,
June 4, 2012).
The participant expressed the view that the behavioral profiling
practice employed
in the U.S. is being done incorrectly. What was discussed
during this portion of the
interview were the differences between the U.S. procedure
known as Screening of
Passengers by Observation Technique (SPOT), which is utilized
by trained TSA
employees referred to as Behavioral Detection Officers (BDOs),
and the Israeli
Behavioral Pattern Recognition (BPR) procedure. The U.S.
method was not being
performed from the perspective of looking for a terrorist. As
noted in participant 10’s
response,
Their focus is wrong. It’s determined by political correctness
and, some of these
other negative traits that they have—what we need to do is train
people to

actually look for what the terrorists may be and that’s a big
difference between
SPOT and what the Israelis are doing. But in my opinion, it’s
something we can
and should do. It would be cheaper than what we’re doing now.
(Participant 10,
Interview response, June 4, 2012).
The culture in America has made the use of this technique
difficult, and its use
could be interpreted as racial bias by U.S. security authorities.
All of the participants
who responded to the notion of behavioral profiling agreed it
does work when
employed properly. As stated by one of the participants in the
response concerning
behavioral profiling, “The Israelis have no problem with
profiling. If we didn’t call it
that over here I think it would really work” (Participant 3,
Interview response, April
4, 2012).
The practice of behavioral profiling was noted in the response
of a participant
when talking about knowledge demands. The comments were in
the context of
making a differentiation between nervous behavior as it may
relate to the fear of
flying, and the nervous tendencies exhibited by a person
intending to do harm. As
cited in this response,

But they need to be able to recognize a threat object and also
probably have
enough of an understanding of human nature to understand why
is this person in
front of me nervous? Are they nervous because they pose a
threat, or are they
nervous because they hate to fly? (Participant 7, Interview
Response, May 4,
2012).
The practice of behavioral profiling is a learned process. One of
the participants
who cited this as means for detecting terrorists also included a
caveat. The caveat
concerns the difficulty of teaching this practice in a classroom
setting. Behavioral
profiling is a practice, which requires a more hands-on
technique. This was acknowl-
edged by one of the participants,
That’s a really tough skill set to learn. I see that in our own
SPOT program.
They go through training and they learn certain behaviors that
they watch for.
But until I actually do it, it’s a really tough thing. We all profile
whether we
realize it or not. We’ve made profiling as a dirty word and I
don’t think it is. I
think we ought to be profiling actions and those behaviors
(Participant 1,
Interview Response, March 30, 2012).
Risk management
Risk management emerged as a professional skill set needed for

employment in
aviation security environment. The participants were asked
directly about skill sets
and six of the participants (60 %) included risk management as
a critical need. Those
participants who included risk management as a critical element
expressed excite-
ment and enthusiasm in articulating its importance in an
aviation security. The
participants indicated risk management was at the core of
aviation security. Risk
management is the heart of any security discipline. As indicated
by one of the
participants responses,
It’s very difficult to be proactive in the security domain. Very
difficult to get the
budgets to do it but you have to try and think what’s the next
step. What will—
what may they throw at us next which—now I’m talking about
management
and policy and senior people and you got to look for people—
you need a
certain degree of creativity and you need good management
skills. I think you
need risk management skills. Risk management is critical. I
think one of the
core competencies for any security professional. And I would
think it’s one of
the key or core elements in homeland security should be risk
management . . .
but risk management has to be a central one because it’s
relevant for all areas of

security not only aviation and it’s probably the heart of all
security. (Participant
5, Interview Response, April 12, 2012).
The participant further related how important risk management
was as it applied to
employment in aviation security. The practice of risk
management is used when
making assessments of airports and airlines, and risk
management tools were a part of
daily work life. The participant further expressed the
importance of risk management
as an academic competency, which should be utilized. As noted
in the following
response,
I do it all the time. When I go and do a survey—an assessment
on an airport or
an airline, and I use risk assessment tools to evaluate the whole
situation. It’s the
best method to use. Risk management methodology was
developed first in the
military that’s for military use. It works best in security
operations and of
course, then it was adapted into the chemical industry for
protecting safety,
it’s a core competency academically. (Participant 5, Interview
Response, April
12, 2012).
In a discussion with one of the participants concerning the skill
sets needed for
employment in the aviation security environment the need for
contingency planning

emerged. Contingency planning was referred to as a
professional skill set, which was
translated by the participant as a means to mitigate the threat of
terrorism as being a
risk management approach. The participant explained a proper
education in risk
management in the aviation industry provides a new perspective
of the environment.
As illustrated in the following response,
I would say that contingency planning is a strong professional
skill, and then
you might even wrap around that, the overall description of risk
management. I
think possibly one of the most valuable elements of my
postgraduate diploma
was Risk Management. It was a very good unit and if it’s
delivered well, then
what it does is it allows you to see the environment that you’re
working in from
a different perspective than your past training was given with.
You have to take
into account that you work for a government department. You
are often in a
situation where you cannot win so to speak, but your ability to
render a risk
management knowledge approach, to guide them towards
solutions that they
might not have thought of, I think is very, very valuable
(Participant 4,
Interview Response, April 15, 2012).
The participant also explained how the job of a security
professional is vital to
informing the management staff of an aviation company in the
event of a disaster,

such as the event of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in
1988. The participant
pointed out how bad communications were in those days and
this deficiency was
noted in the President’s Commission report about Pan Am 103.
As noted in this
response,
I’m naturally attached to this kind of thing because you can
imagine if you’re an
aviation security professional working for an airline, and there’s
a crash and
fatalities and the airline in past form shoot yourself in the foot
by failing to advise
people who are urgently inquiring about what’s happened to
their families, not
releasing information coming out with no comment.
Fortunately, those days
appear to have dissipated but it used to be quite bad when
airlines didn’t commu-
nicate and some of the knowledge that came out of the
President’s Commission on
Pan AM 103 dealt with that area—directly with that area of the
way in which
airlines manage that. Now, the aviation security professional is
on the periphery of
that not in the center of that because that’s a task undertaken by
other departments
in the airline . . . (Participant 4, Interview Response, April 15,
2012).

The concept of a risk based management approach was also
noted by one of the
participants actively working in aviation security. The aviation
security industry has
come to realize the importance of a risk management approach
and concentrate on
looking for the person who is considered a higher risk. As
stated in this response,
Mr. Pistol’s efforts at screening for intent, risk based security
we are off on
another good path here I really believe that. I’m not just saying
it but I do truly
believe that this is the right thing to do. Mr. Pistol has this
vision of risk-based
security and frankly I think it’s the right one because you say
I’m not going to
screen and scrutinize most people getting on an airplane. I’m
not going to
scrutinize them very hard, and I’m going to focus all my
resources on who I
think is higher risk (Participant 2, Interview Response, March
30, 2012).
Leadership in aviation security
Leadership skills, identified as a professional skill set, were a
topic discussed by eight
of the participants (80 %) as essential to being a good aviation
security professional.
Various segments of what was considered essential to leadership
as it applies to
aviation security were discussed among the participants. Some
examples of these
qualities are, but not limited to: being a leader of people and
not manage them, being

a good mentor, being able to accept negative criticism from
your subordinates and
remain open minded, and the education in leadership should be
from a multi-
disciplinary approach. The following from one of the
participants illustrates the
concept of leading and not managing,
Today in this country we have no leadership. I don’t know if
you ever heard of a
woman called Amazing Grace Hopper? A little old lady who
was a mathema-
tician was the Navy’s first female admiral. She grabbed the
Navy kicking and
screaming a number of years ago into the computer age and her
quote said “you
lead people, you manage things.” So you need to be able to
manage a budget.
But you need to not manage your people—you need to be able
to lead them, be
open with them, discuss things so I think absolutely, that’s to
me a sign of
almost any organization, military police, civilian agencies,
business (Participant
9, May 26, 2012).
When discussing the concept of a leader or manager the quality
of being able to
take constructive criticism and remain open minded was
highlighted. This was a point
made when the interview question was posited in the need for

critical content areas
for employment in the aviation security environment. As
illustrated by one of the
participants,
One of the biggest things is, particularly if you’re in
management, is you have
to be open minded and not react like most people do when
they’re confronted
with something negative. Nobody wants to be told that they
made a mistake or
something that they’re doing is wrong or bad. You need to look
at certain
information—it goes back to the red team thing. When a real red
team actually
tells you that a security system you have is a joke, then rather
than take it out on
the red team, look at the information objectively and make
changes to it as you
can and so open mindedness and I’m not sure, a strong self-ego
where you’re
not intimidated by this type of stuff which most managers are
now (Participant
10, Interview Response, May 26, 2012).
A leader in the aviation security environment will have a
knowledge base ground-
ed in certain essential management principals. An emphasis on
understanding the
customer base in areas of customer relations, customer service,
and related manage-
ment concepts was suggested by one participant in describing
skill sets as an essential
component. As illustrated in this participant’s interview,
I think part of the security background would also be an

understanding of
customer relations, customer service, some kind of a
management course; basic
management. (Participant 6, Interview Response, April 30,
2012).
One participant noted a good aviation security professional
needs to have leader-
ship skills specific to aviation security. The participant stated
some companies hire a
security professional who has no experience in aviation security
and will not be able
to lead effectively in an aviation security environment. As noted
in the following
response,
You know a security professional has to be able to manage his
security staff and
so in order—he’s got to be the professional—he’s got to be both
a professional
in order to understand—he’s got to be able to lead—or
command his staff
professionally and he’s got to lead them as a commander as
well. Which is, that
is sometimes overlooked—sometimes in the private sector they
tend to recruit
someone—we’ve done some consulting with private companies.
You’ll find the
senior management in some of the private companies are
managers. They’re
business managers, they’re not security managers and they don’t
have a security
background and so while they might be very good at trying to
make money,
they don’t really know how to raise the level from a security
point of view

(Participant 5, Interview Response, April 12, 2012).
Critical thinking
Critical thinking skills were addressed by six of the participants
(60 %) in their
interview responses to questions addressing the central research
question of the
professional skill sets needed for employment in aviation
security. The need for
critical thinking skills was disclosed in discussions of what an
aviation security
professional must be capable of doing in performing his or her
daily tasks.
The skills concerning critical thinking ranged from being able
to see the big
picture, thinking in depth about your responsibilities, a
heightening of threat aware-
ness, thinking about the next step, and having a broader
understanding of risk and
threat. As acknowledged by one participants response,
But if you really think about your job, most of this stuff can be
prevented
as far as crime and I took that as a lesson towards terrorism as
you need
people that can actually think about their job. Don’t just look at
it as big
ego thing or whatever—authoritarian thing. And you can
actually, kind of

like Sherlock Holmes—mentally figure—find a solution to a lot
of these
problems and this goes into the skill sets (Participant 10,
Interview
Response, June 4, 2012).
In the application of critical thinking skills it was illustrated by
one of the
participants as having an employee who can focus on a problem,
perhaps at a
checkpoint or similar situation, who can think beyond the
problem before them.
Being able to conceptualize that this problem may actually be a
part of a larger
circumstance or can the employee make the connection. In
probing further about
essential professional skills an employee in aviation security
should possess, the
participant responded,
You want people who can see the bigger picture. And, some of
these things get
into an academic kind of program—a bigger picture. So, I have
managers that
are faced with a problem at a checkpoint and they deal with that
problem and
then they forget that there might be a bigger circle there that
they need to worry
about. They’re so focused on this guy has a bad ID and let’s
take care of this
guy. Wait a minute—there’s bigger circumstances here. Can you
see the bigger
circumstances? Can you make a connection? (Participant 2,
Interview Re-
sponse, March 30, 2012).

In further consideration of this skill set, another participant
elaborated when
discussing the required knowledge demands a prospective
employee should possess
for employment in aviation security management was having the
ability to think and
be able to change your focus of the problem, and be able to
evolve with the
continuing threat of terrorism in aviation security, as this
participant stated,
It sounds kind of obvious but one is to be able to think. Because
your threat is
always changing and because the intelligence is always
changing, you’ve got to
have that flexibility to keep changing your response (Participant
3, Interview
Response, April 4, 2012).
This participant further elaborated about thinking beyond what
you are being told
about a problem, and having the ability to resolve the problem.
An aviation security
professional must be able to resolve problems. As the
participant stated,
It’s an analytical thing, a critical thing and to be able to take a
problem and
resolve it. If I go meet the customer and they tell me that—it
doesn’t even have
to be aviation security but just in security business in general—
they’ll tell you

they may or may not tell you what the intelligence is, in terms
of what kinds of
threats they’re looking for. They might tell you the operational
environment
they want to work in. They might tell you what kind of
explosives they think
they might be facing. Who the enemy is. Who the bad guys
could be. So then
you have to start asking about potential weak spots in their
infrastructure or
tactics as well (Participant 3, Interview Response, April 4,
2012).
Terrorism
In addressing the knowledge demands, having a knowledge of
terrorism was noted as
a critical need for employment in the aviation security
environment. Terrorism was
cited by seven of the participants (70 %) as a knowledge
demand. As noted in the
following response,
I think you need a background in terrorism because I think you
need to
understand what the threat is really about, what the history of
that threat against
aviation is. You go back to the 1930s—the first hijacking of a
plane in the world
to 9/11 and there’s a huge volume of history in aviation
terrorism and it
changes, and so I think we need to understand where it came
from and where
it’s headed and where that threat starts to evolve (Participant 1,
Interview
Response, March 30, 2012).

When asked directly about terrorism one participant’s response
was approached
not only from the historical context of terrorism, but to examine
the phenomenon
from case studies to determine the evolution of the terrorist
attack as it relates to
aviation. As noted in this response,
Although I talk about this being a reactionary industry, I think
there’s a lot of
lessons to be learned from what the industry has faced.
Certainly one of the first
things I did when I got into this kind of field is I started looking
at case studies
—just looking at history. What is the evolution of the terrorist
attack using the
aviation industry? You can look at Pan Am 103 that was plastic
explosives
stuffed inside electronics so it was x-rayed but it wasn’t
identifiable because it
was early days (Participant 3, Interview Response, April 4,
2012).
Acquiring the knowledge of the aspects of terrorism from
countermeasures used in
mitigation practices to the history of terrorism, and why aircraft
are an attractive
target is important for a potential employee to know, and was
mentioned by one of the
participants, as illustrated in this response,
I think having knowledge of counterterrorism, history of
terrorism, why do
these guys do what they do? Why do they have a fetish for
airplanes? I think

that would be important stuff to know too (Participant 6,
Interview Response,
April 30, 2012).
Another participant responded by suggesting a blending of the
history of aviation
terrorism, in juxtaposition to a history of aviation security. This
illustrates the way
governments have responded to terrorist’s attacks, by
developing security for attacks
as they unfold, and not anticipating what the next event may
look like. As noted in the
following response,
What I think the areas they need to know is history of aviation
terrorism. And also,
a parallel history of aviation security. In other words, how
aviation security has
developed in response to events which have happened in
aviation terrorism. It’s
usually gone that way action response. Not the other way
around unfortunately,
but that’s the way it’s gone (Participant 5, Interview Response,
April 12, 2012).
In a discussion of the practical or pragmatic approach to
aviation security, one
participant illustrated the need for understanding the threats to
the aviation industry
from a non-state threats approach. These would include
terrorists groups and criminal
groups. As noted in this response,

Then, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, you’re
probably going to
want something on threats to the industry. Understanding the
contemporary
security environment, particularly non-state threats to the
industry, terrorist
groups, criminal groups, things like that. Then you probably—
you might want
then some regional studies type things (Participant 7, Interview
Response, May
4, 2012).
The final response on this issue was raised within the discussion
of terrorism by
one of the participants. It centered on understanding how a
terrorist behaves. A very
simple illustration of terrorist behavior was explained by one of
the participants.
Aviation security professionals should understand and educate
themselves on terror-
ist’s behaviors as a means to prevent or deter a terrorist attack
on the aviation industry.
As noted from this response,
The one thing I learned about terrorism is the terrorists are like
water. They
follow the path of least resistance. And if you as a red team
member or a
security professional can understand how this path of least
resistance goes, then
as a security professional you can figure out a way to block that
path and make
them go somewhere else or make them not try at all. It’s a
major effort trying to
get people to think like that (Participant 10, Interview

Response, June 4, 2012).
Airport environment
The airport environment or a “systems approach,” as described
by one participant,
emerged as a knowledge demand. Seven of the participants (70
%) indicated this
knowledge demand was essential for an aviation security
professional. That is seeing
the “big picture” of the airport environment and how it
functions. A potential
employee needs to learn each component, and how these
individual components
affect or could affect aviation security. The participants who
addressed this issue
strongly encouraged the need for an aviation security manger to
fully grasp how each
link-in-the-chain is a vital area to understand in an effort to
better prepare a potential
employee to make sound security decisions.
As noted in the following response,
One of my degrees is business management so you always do
the case studies
on such and such in this area. Or you do an exercise in the CEO,
CFO or
something like that or you could do the same thing in an
aviation security
environment. . . there’s probably a dozen things I can think of

where you would
take that business—the business model and apply it to an
aviation security
environment (Participant 2, Interview Response, March 30,
2012).
One participant described the airport environment by saying it
is necessary to
understand the airport landscape and how the different entities,
which comprise the
airport environment feed into security, as noted in this
response,
It’s—critical content areas. There are so many different tenants
that feed into
security I think it’s best to look at the umbrella of how that
covers everything
and suggest what is the basic set of the industry. Have the FSD
at the airport
—(Facility and Security Director) show you a day in the life of
an airport. That
speaks volumes. To get access to see what gets screened. To see
where the
baggage goes (Participant 3, Interview Response, April 4,
2012).
In a discussion with a participant concerning the desired
knowledge demands a
prospective employee should possess for employment in today’s
aviation security
environment, the notion of a systems approach or an
understanding of the airport
environment was articulated. The response covered many areas
of the airport land-
scape starting with the terminal area, security areas, tarmac,
types of airplanes, fuel

trucks, and retail entities, and the front or entrance to the
airport terminal. The
participant would train new employees to become familiar with
these areas, and to
constantly think as a terrorist and what would be appealing as a
target for an attack.
The philosophy was to think like a terrorist from a tactical
standpoint and to break
down the airport environment into manageable segments for a
security evaluation.
The emphasis was in order to accomplish this task; you must
understand the com-
ponent parts of the airport. As acknowledged in the following
response,
It’s not a fashionable term anymore but I still like the term,
systems approach.
And when we had young agents come, I would take them out
and try to give
them my version of this. Let me give you an example . . . they’d
first get the
overview of the FAA . . . We’d go out we’d walk the ramps and
we’d talk about
airplanes, the danger areas—the identifiers—this is a 757, this
is a 737, fuel
trucks, catering . . . I’d take them out in front of the airport and
said, we’re going
to limit our system—inner system to basically where you enter
the airport . . .
you’ve got the approaches to the airport, you’ve got parking
garages, you’ve
got where you drive up on the curb and we’d go out and start
walking through
the easement . . . I said I want you to think like a terrorist . . .
what could a

terrorist do, what does a terrorist want to do (Participant 9,
Interview Response,
May 26, 2012).
In a discussion concerning critical content areas and essential
skill sets needed for
employment in the aviation security environment, the need for
protecting a terminal
flight sitting on the tarmac and the crew’s safety when staying
overnight at lodging
facilities on airport property was raised by the participant. This
was a natural segue to
being familiar with the overall airport environment as an
aviation security
professional.
The topic of protecting aircraft and flight crews pertains more
to the private
industries concerns when making decisions as an airline or
charter company in this
regard. The participant voiced both an international perspective
and a U.S. perspec-
tive, as in the following illustration of the participant’s
thoughts,
They’ve got to remember how are they protecting that aircraft
when it’s sitting
on the ground out at the airport when it’s overnight. How are we
protecting their
crews when the crews have to stay? So they’ve got a much
broader understand-
ing. For example, one of the people from one of the Asian

carriers I work with
was worried about IEDs. They asked could IEDs be used against
our people
going to a hotel? Whether they’re being intentionally targeted
or not, what are
the things that we need to understand about our overall
operating environment
that could put us at direct or indirect risk?
If it is primarily a U.S. audience then what I would do is give
sort of the U.S.
approach both legally and security wise, answering basic
questions: How are
airports structured and governed? How is the industry structure
governed? Who
has responsibility for what (Participant 7, Interview Response,
May 4, 2012).
The last response on this topic from a participant provided
validity to the previous
statements given about the notion of an overall perspective of
the airport environ-
ment, as noted in this response referring to not only the airport
environment, but if a
security professional is employed by the Transportation
Security Administration your
duties also include navigable water ways and other forms of
interstate transportation,
You would have the ability based on—because the
transportation industry is
always going on 24–7. You’ve got the ability to link up and do
a lot of hands on
stuff. Either what’s going on at the airport or what’s going out
at the cargo
facility, hazardous materials and even broadening out into the

different things
that are going like the Kerr McClellan—and again I’m kind of
dragging in other
transportation modes here, but it’s like the locking dam on the
Kerr McClellan,
that system down here why do we need security down there—
okay let’s go
down and look at this thing. See how it operates (Participant 8,
May 10, 2012).
Aviation law
Aviation law and how it applies to aviation security emerged as
a knowledge demand.
Five of the participants (50 %) stressed the importance of
having a working knowl-
edge of the law as it pertains to the field of aviation security.
An aviation security
professional must be familiar with the legal issues in order to
provide a legal and
ethical aviation security program, and make decisions that will
not jeopardize the
integrity of their company. The broader perspective of
associated entities working
together in the aviation environment was tangentially referenced
as well. In
questioning one participant about the critical content areas
associated with aviation
security, the first response to the question was the law, as
acknowledged in the
following response,

Definitely the law. ATSA, Aviation Transportation Security Act
that creates
TSA and defines our authority not only in passenger screening
but air marshals
and other ground transportation. I think you have to have that
background to
understand how we operate and why we operate and I think
those are key. I
think the Homeland Security act of 2002 is another really good
example of—
you have to understand where you have legal authority or where
that authority
comes from and that drives everything that we do. (Participant
1, Interview
Response, March 30, 2012).
To provide for a foundational level of operations in aviation
security, an aviation
security professional needs to have an understanding of
international law. As one
participant noted,
I would also think you probably need to know this as you’re
professional
anyway, but understanding international aviation law. Not that
you’re going
to be a lawyer but that you understand what the regulations say
so that some
industries have what they call a compliance officer but
essentially that if you are
in security, what is it that you’re supposed to be doing
(Participant 7, Interview
Response, May 4, 2012).
Additionally, the same participant described the need to

understand the governing
bodies associated with the aviation industry, and the regulations
promulgated from
these entities and the associated aviation laws,
So an understanding of ICAO, IATA and some of the regional
bodies. How do
they work, how do they function, what’s their mission? Two
then, aviation laws
in the broader sense of the term, but then very specifically
coming into law,
what are the security conventions? What do they cover, what are
they trying to
address? Strengths and weaknesses of them, how are they
applied. So I think
those would be a couple of areas (Participant 7, Interview
Response, May 4,
2012).
The final response from a participant indicated to being versed
in the law as
it pertains to aviation security and understanding how it can
affect a person’s
rights,
The challenge between the security part of it versus the civil
liberties part of it
and the ability to do certain things, your freedoms versus being
always locked
down and secured and stuff like that. Where do you kind of
mesh all that
together, where it makes sense (Participant 8, Interview
Response, May 10,
2012).

Conclusions
The following conclusions illustrate what the interviewed
aviation security profes-
sionals recommended based on the research question: What are
the basic knowledge
demands and essential professional skill sets needed for
employment within the
aviation security environment?
The findings of this study related the importance of identifying
knowledge de-
mands and essential skill sets that aviation security
professionals are seeking from
applicants applying for employment in the aviation security
environment. These
seven knowledge demands and skill sets identified and
expressed by the aviation
security professionals from their lived professional experiences
included: (1) behav-
ioral profiling, (2) risk management, (3) leadership, (4) critical
thinking, (5) terrorism,
(6) airport environment, and (7) aviation law.
Behavioral profiling is an essential skill to be learned and
acquired over time as an
aviation security professional. According to the participants,
understanding behav-
ioral profiling was an important aspect in aviation security. The
method of behavioral
profiling is a methodology of recognizing behavior patterns of
suspicious activities of
individuals. The Israeli model is actually referred to as racial

profiling; however,
behavioral profiling is less controversial and could be a more
productive and cost
effective way of securing U.S. aviation. Instead of looking at
and treating everyone as
a terrorist this method would allow security professionals to
focus on finding a
terrorist. Participant 10 noted the method utilized by TSA,
referred to as the Screen-
ing of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program
is not being utilized
correctly by the agency. The TSA uses persons know as
Behavioral Detection
Officers (BDOs) to perform this method; however, they are not
necessarily looking
for the behaviors of a terrorist. They have been trained to detect
suspicious activity
which yields numerous arrests of criminals perpetrating crimes
on the traveling public
and not persons intending to commit acts of terrorism. BDOs
should be trained in the
identification of terrorist activity and to understand the
differences in the two
behaviors.
The majority of the participants recommended risk management
as a knowledge
demand. Aviation security professionals should have a
comprehensive understanding
of risk management, as it is considered the foundational
building block of any
security system. Risk management with aviation security
considers two elements:
(1) the likelihood of a threat, and (2) the consequences of a
successful attack. Aviation
security professionals must be able to decipher the differences

between threat and
risk. According to the participants of this study, risk
management is a critical
competency which should be part of the fabric of each aviation
security decision
process. Risk management is a proactive approach to aviation
security and lessens the
need to be reactive when performed correctly.
Leadership was highly recommended by the participants as an
essential skill
needed for employment in aviation security. Being an effective
leader is a crucial
aspect in implementing a vision plan. A leader must have the
ability to sell the vision
and have “buy-in” from subordinates or it will fail. Aviation
security is a discipline,
which stands apart from other leadership models; therefore,
good business leaders do
not necessarily make good aviation security leaders as stated by
participant 5 when it
was explained that some aviation companies make the mistake
of placing security
professionals in positions they are not qualified to serve;
therefore, the concept of
leadership was an essential skill set an aviation security
professional should possess.
The participants of this study emphasized the need for aviation
security profes-
sionals to be critical thinkers. Critical thinking is a process used

in many areas
associated with aviation security, for example analyzing
intelligence data closely
correlates with the risk management process. Critical thinking
plays an important
role in conducting counter security measures, such as the
method described by the
participants as “Red Teaming.” Another part of critical thinking
is the ability of the
aviation security professional to think globally. Aviation and
terrorism is not uniquely
confined to the U.S., but it is a global phenomenon. Participant
4 explained the fact
the U.S. tends to approach aviation security from a point of
introspection, and not
connecting to the rest of the world. Aviation security decisions
in the U.S. are
axiomatic among law makers and those associated with
implementing aviation
security procedures. As the U.S. system of security comes into
contact with global
systems unexpected results can occur. Aviation security
decisions need to be made
with this thought in mind. These unexpected results, or as Bruce
Schneier (2003) calls
them “emergent properties” or “unintended consequences” will
have an adverse
effect on a security system (p. 49).
The subject of terrorism was also recommended by the
participants as a knowledge
demand for an aviation security professional. Persons employed
in aviation security
must have a thorough understanding of terrorism from its
historical beginnings as a
means of asymmetrical warfare to the current trends in terrorism

from a global
perspective. The majority of attacks on the aviation industry are
classified as “acts
of terrorism.” The fact that the aviation security professional
must be able to think as
a terrorist was strongly supported by the responding
participants. Aviation security
professionals and law enforcement agencies often talk about the
term “Red Teaming.”
Red teaming is organizing a team of persons who conceive ways
to attack a given
target from the perspective of a terrorist in order to test the
effectiveness of a security
plan. Security professionals should be versed on designing and
implementing “Red
Team Operations.”
The participants agreed understanding every aspect of the
airport environment and
how each component of the airport interacts with each other in
the daily operations of
an airport is crucial. A terrorist will often strike at the weakest
link of a chain as noted
by Schneier (2003). These links in the chain are referred to as
holes placed in a barrier
to allow authorized access by trusted persons. Each entity of the
airport including the
terminal, parking garages, hotels and restaurants, tarmac,
hangar areas, airport oper-
ations area (AOA) and flight schools, are links in the chain.
Effective aviation
security is better achieved when the security professional learns
how best to protect
the holes in the barrier and how to defend against intentional
and unwarranted attacks.

Available online at www.sciencedirect.comComputers & Industr.docx

Available online at www.sciencedirect.comComputers & Industr.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Available online at www.sciencedirect.comComputers & Industr.docx

Similar to Available online at www.sciencedirect.comComputers & Industr.docx (20)

More from rock73

More from rock73 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Available online at www.sciencedirect.comComputers & Industr.docx