The right of the overflown state to divert or intercept civil aircraft under a bomb threat: an analysis with regard to Ryanair flight 4978

The purpose of this article is to discuss whether a state has a right to divert or intercept a foreign civil aircraft flying above its territory, when the aircraft is under a bomb threat. The analysis stems from the recent incident where a Ryanair passenger jet was diverted to Minsk while flying in Belarusian airspace; however, the article approaches the topic from a general perspective, analyzing the key applicable rules of international aviation safety and security law. The article argues that air sovereignty and national rules on aviation (the latter wherever such exist) provide states acting in good faith the right to divert or intercept foreign aircraft for security reasons. Meanwhile, Article 3 bis of the Chicago Convention does not recognize such a right. The right is also limited by international rules that oblige every state to assist aircraft in distress, as well as rules that emphasize the authority and responsibility of the pilot-in-command. Since mid-air interventions are so rare, the legality of states’ actions must be analyzed case-by-case. Regardless, the legal regime of international aviation does not allow states to respond to security threats in whatever way they please, especially if the threat is a mere pretext for politically motivated action.

Increasing the deterrence of airport security checks by managing expectations through communication: a hypothetical scenario experiment

Selective security screenings are discussed as a potential strategy to reduce costs and waiting times at airports, while keeping security high. However, the limited literature suggests that traditional security screenings, where all passengers are screened, are perceived as more deterrent for criminal activity and more secure from passengers’ perspectives. The goal of this study was to investigate whether targeted communication on an airport’s website can counteract the detrimental effect of randomised airport security checks on deterrence. The study results confirm prior findings that people with illegal intentions prefer randomised security checks compared to traditional security checks. However, there are hints that tactical communication could be a tool to improve security at airports. All in all, the insights gathered in this study should be taken as a sign of caution, when considering switching to selective security screenings. Future directions for investigating the effect of tactical communication are discussed.

Optimising multi-layered security screening

Screening for prohibited items at airports is an example of a multi-layered screening process. Multiple layers of screening – often comprising different technologies with complementary strengths and weaknesses – are combined to create a single screening process. The detection performance of the overall system depends on multiple factors, including the performance of individual layers, the complementarity of different layers, and the decision rule(s) for determining how outputs from individual layers are combined. The aim of this work is to understand and optimise the overall system performance of a multi-layered screening process. Novel aspects include the use of realistic profiles of alarm distributions based on experimental observations and a focus on the influence of correlation/orthogonality amongst the layers of screening. The results show that a cumulative screening architecture can outperform a cascading one, yielding a significant increase in system-level true positive rate for only a modest increase in false positive rate. A cumulative screening process is also more resilient to weaknesses in the individual layers. The performance of a multi-layered screening process using a cascading approach is maximised when the false positives are orthogonal across the different layers and the true positives are correlated. The system-level performance of a cumulative screening process, on the other hand, is maximised when both false positives and true positives are as orthogonal as possible. The cost of ignoring orthogonality between screening layers is explored with some numerical examples. The underlying software model is provided in a Jupyter Notebook as supplementary material.

Risk analysis for forecasting cyberattacks against connected and autonomous vehicles

A security risk analysis was conducted to identify possible cyberattacks against a future transport system consisting of autonomous and connected vehicles. Six scenarios were developed: joyriding, kidnapping, domestic abuse, autopilot manipulation, a large transport accident, and paralysis of the transport system. Even if it were possible to increase the difficulty of conducting such cyberattacks, it might be impossible to eliminate such attacks entirely. Measures that limit the consequences will therefore be necessary. Such measures include safety measures in vehicles to protect their occupants in traffic accidents and measures that make vehicles easier to remove in case they do not function.