Pacific aviation vulnerable to attack

Aviation

By Sophie Foster Hildebrand

Most Pacific Island countries are

extremely vulnerable

to terrorist or crimi nal attacks on their aviation sector, according to a report by the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand.

The report warned that “while the threat of a serious incident may be classed as low compared with some other parts of the world, the inadequacies of the aviation security countermeasures in place in most of the countries leaves a level of vulnera bility to acts of unlawful interference that can only be classified as high”. The com ments, made at the Forum Aviation Policy Meeting in Suva, Fiji in May, were based on a CAA-NZ review of the aviation secu rity situation of Forum Island Countries in 1995.

CAA-NZ said even one incident could create an economic catastrophe for the

country concerned and for others in the region. “As for the impact of unlawful interference, take the example of the Mediterranean where there was a 42 per cent drop in tourism over the past few years because of such acts. Only a small percentage were by terrorists, the majority were criminal activity,” CAA-NZ said in the presenting the report.

The report stressed the importance and urgency of improving security measures.

“The international high profile events in Australia and New Zealand during 1999 and 2000, APEC meetings, Olympics 2000 and the America’s Cup are likely to give rise to a significant increase in the threat level to aviation in the South Pacific,” the report said. Despite some assistance from Donor states over the past 21 years, it said little long term improvement had been achieved in improving aviation security.

The report added that because individu al states did not have the expertise and organisational structure to meet require -

ments, acting alone would not provide improvements. Fiji agreed that the need for greater vigilance and better security proce dures should be high on the regional agen da because “it would just take one incident of unlawful interference to ruin what progress and development to date, particu larly in the aviation and tourism sectors”.

The host country, Fiji, had a security scare in 1987 which served to provide impetus for better security measures.

“Through our experience on the attempted hijack of the ANZ aircraft in 1987, the drafting of the Civil Aviation (Security) Act 1994 was geared to deal with threats from the inside as well as from the outside,” Fiji’s information paper, Aviation Security, stated.

Not surprisingly, by the end of the meeting, the Pacific countries adopted an Action Plan which included support for the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Aviation Security Enhancement Project proposal. ■