“Know your enemy,” Dr. Richard Kobetz, executive director of the Executive Protection Institute, told attendees at a two-day corporate aircraft security seminar. “Due to recent events we find ourselves focused on a very specific type of terrorist, but in reality terrorists come in all shapes and sizes and their motivations and objectives are many and varied.” When it comes to the flight department radicals all share one common goal–to take control of the aircraft.
“Aircraft are particularly attractive targets for terrorists because they are valuable, visible and vulnerable,” Kobetz told AIN. “Their value offers the prospect of placing them in jeopardy for bargaining purposes. Their visibility makes them attractive symbolic targets. Their inherent vulnerability makes them difficult to protect from those who seek to do them harm. An aircraft can be used as a bargaining chip, a means of transport and a missile.”
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