Aviation security is an area where it seems that we’re always playing catch-up, tweaking the measures in accordance with the latest incident. This reactive attitude is precisely where the bans on liquids and more recently electronics in the cabin stem from. AeroTime talked with aviation security expert Philip Baum about the need to take a proactive stance and train staff to spot potential hijackers.

You recently authored a book called Violence in the Skies: A History of Aircraft Hijacking and Bombing. What would you like to share about it?

I always had an interest in aviation security, probably because I grew up on the flight path into London Heathrow. I remember, as a child, looking out from my bedroom window, watching aircraft from around the world lowering their landing gears on their final approach. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, a period of time when there were numerous hijackings, primarily of American jets in Europe; in the aftermath of the Six-Day War 1967 between Israel and its Arab neighbours, we saw Palestinian groups use hijacking as a tactic in order to make their case to the international community. That was headline news at the time and impacted me significantly.

I never planned a career in aviation security but I was certainly interested in it. Many years later I actually found myself working in aviation security at London Heathrow. I worked through different levels of management there and eventually went into training, always fascinated by the human story behind each incident. I was less interested in the quantity of explosives, the number of firearms or aircraft type, but always sought to establish what motivated somebody to take such desperate measures as to hijack an aircraft. Many of the stories are indeed fascinating. There are high-profile cases that we’re all familiar with, like the Lockerbie bombing or 9/11 attacks, but, of course, there are many more incidents that have happened throughout the years. Some of them are – in retrospect – almost amusing, albeit no doubt scary for all those involved at the time.

It seems like in the past more cases of hijacking were carried out by people trying to flee oppressive regimes, like the Soviet Union. Why so?

The majority of hijackings over the years have either been perpetrated by people wishing to escape, to claim asylum elsewhere or people with psychological issues. Terrorism has never been the number one rationale for the hijacking of aircraft. If you look at the history of hijacking in China or the former Soviet Union, or even some places in the Middle East today, a lot of the hijackings have been perpetrated in order to escape. Nationals of these countries were often permitted to purchase tickets on domestic flights but carried no passport or permit for international travel; by hijacking a flight they could turn a cheap, domestic journey into a passport to perceived greener pastures.

Are the people that attempt hijacking nowadays not afraid of getting caught or even executed?

When people are feeling truly desperate, they are prepared to go to extreme measures. Let’s take the Sudan Airways hijacking of 1996 when some Iraqi diplomats were being summoned back to Baghdad from Sudan. They knew that if they went back to Iraq, they would likely be executed because they had upset the Saddam regime. They decided to hijack their own airliner to London. Now they live in London - they succeeded in achieving their goal. A lot of people hijacked aircraft from the US to Cuba, or from Cuba to the US; sometimes there was a political reason, sometimes criminal intent, sometimes a mix of both with a psychological element there as well. People believed it was achievable and were aware they might die in the process. Like any soldier in a war. You know your objective, you hope that you will survive but there is a high risk involved.