If you are a parent, guardian, grandparent, uncle, aunt, or Godparent, this blog is devoted to assist you in making a safer world for the children in your life. In my weekly blog, I will identify and discuss risks that face families daily and offer tips to assist them through their busy lives.
Are you worried about who else is getting on the plane with your family? Does this make you nervous? Airline security is a fact of life and it is not going away. As parents, we must remain proactive and vigilant when it comes to our children and be another pair of eyes for airline security.
It is a sobering fact that a terrorist does not discriminate between adults and children. Every resource the government has needs to be used to combat an enemy who will use every dirty tactic in their arsenal to promote terror and accomplish their frightening mission.
Taking into account what happened a couple of weeks ago on flight 253, I think we would be extremely naïve to believe that there are not people with grave intentions checking out the security procedures at airports across the country, looking for an opportunity to do the unthinkable. As citizens, we entrust airport security to provide the highest standard of security to protect us and to keep building better security technology to detect and prevent future criminal acts. Detection devices such as whole body image scans, pat downs, puffer machine (explosives trace-detection portal machine) and bomb dogs, need to be used by trained airport screeners. Identifying possible criminal behaviors and characteristics must be detected by behavior detection officers and other undercover security personnel.
What can we do as responsible parents to keep our children safe while traveling? First, let's all take a deep breath and understand that flying in the US is primarily safe and I don't want to instill panic or a doubt about our airline security. I think for the most part, our security procedures are good, but we always need to strive to be better and safer. Since flight 253, I have heard so many people talking about how the airlines need to do this and that to keep their passengers safe. I do not want to focus on that but I want to encourage travelers to take it upon themselves to do their part in airline security by understanding what to look for. We need to keep our families safe at the airport and parents must be aware of their surroundings just as they do on a busy street, city park, or at a shopping mall. We must watch our children and watch the environment around them. We must limit our cellular phone and technology use to avoid being distracted. While sitting waiting for a plane, while your children are playing with their toys or otherwise occupied, sit back and watch the people around you. Look for behaviors that make people stand out. Below are some examples of activity which you may consider reporting to security:
• A traveler who is traveling alone and acting nervous and fidgety and will not make eye contact with you or with others.
• A traveler taking pictures of a security checkpoint.
• You see an unattended bag or item.
• You overhear a conversation where a person is talking on a cell phone or to somebody else about committing a crime or if you hear the word bomb.
• You smell an unusual odor.
• You see something that looks unusual on a person's attire.
• If at the ticket counter, you see a person who is paying cash for a ticket with no luggage, question the ticket agent and/or report the incident to security.
• You see someone who is bypassing security or you see a security screener let an unauthorized person through security unchecked. Make sure you get a description of the persons involved.
• You see any unusual looking devices or terroristic reading material.
People are on high alert and with good reason. The above bullet points are just a few things to look for and to keep in mind. I wish the families did not have to worry about watching out for these types of things, but this is the world we live in. If traveling with family, your reasons for being aware increase significantly.
The average person can do extraordinary and heroic acts. This was evident when a man from the Netherlands took the initiative to subdue a man who was trying to blow up flight 253. It all began with the man being observant and noticing something around him that was out of the ordinary. His actions saved many lives that day. Just think about it, if you are flying on a plane with your family, your whole world is on that plane. You observe or hear something unusual, what are you going to do?
