Expert urges renewed checks on airport personnel

In the wake of Friday’s incident at Seattle Tacoma International Airport where a ground employee reportedly stole an empty aircraft and crashed it, Nigerian airport authorities have been urged to intensify on conducting background checks on every personnel at the airports.

A former Commandant of the Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA), Group Capt. John Ojikutu (Rtd), made the call following the incident which left aviation stakeholders globally in shock.

In what was believed to be a suicide mission, the 29-year-old New Horizon Air employee who hailed from Pierce County, according to local authorities, flew the empty passenger plane from a maintenance yard before crashing it into a nearby island.

Ojikutu noted that while background checks were conducted for airport employees after the 9/11 attack in the United States, the issue of having restrictions for one personnel in an aircraft could be difficult to achieve in some airlines as this could not be justified with the number of staff required to cover one shift.

He, however, advised that background checks should be conducted on all personnel working at the airports.

According to him, the authorities, especially the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), should do more than they are doing on airport security with particular focus on insider threats.

He said, “Background checks are different from security checks which are the ones I know that are being done for FAAN by the police; we still need background for every aviation personnel ground or air, especially with the unusual trend in the national threats.

“Secondly, if you are not doing these, you can not afford to leave only one man you have no regular history about to be having single access to your aircraft at will. Please listen to the background of the self-made pilot of the Seattle plane crash. He was before being a technician, aircraft loader who had security clearance to have access into the airport at any time. We need to do more about airport security now than we are doing to tackle likely insider threats”.

When contacted, General Manager, Public Affairs of FAAN, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, said the authority had never relaxed in its security measures.

She said all holders of the On-Duty Card (ODC) issued by FAAN were subjected to background checks before the access card was issued to them.