« Tickle Me Softly| Main | The Good Stuff: Fringe Benefits »
Fear The Sky
CBS is running a story about how concern is building over small plane thefts. As a private pilot, I can tell you that you've got as much to fear out of these little planes as you do the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz.
First, there's the material these things are made of. Have any of you flown in one of these things? It's like wearing a beer can with a propeller on the front. Then there's the weight issue: a fully fueled Cessna 172 can carry about 400-500 pounds. That's you, and well, what 2-3 hundred pounds of diesel fuel? At 5 pounds to the gallon, you've got a couple cans of bomb-making material in there.
Assuming you make it this far, there's actually flying the durn thing. There's a reason people take flying lessons, folks. Even the guys who take hundreds of hours of training have problems, as illustrated by the frequent incursions into airspace -- they don't know where they are. (Surprising as it may seem, there are no highway signs in the sky)
Then there's managing the equipment -- most planes have a complex series of knobs, bells, and whistles (which we pilots like, BTW) Some of these cockpits look like you could launch a nuclear missile from in there.
So I just don't see it happening. Yes. I could put together a scenario where it would happen, but the cost-benefit just isn't there. Terrorists are more likely to use a station wagon than a Piper. So don't fear the skies.
But there is a lesson here as it applies to IT and program management. Many times we do our risk assessment based on what "everybody knows" Everybody knows we need a Windows server, or everybody knows that *nix is the best choice. Everybody knows that we need to lock down all the ports on the firewall.
I was just looking around the web at network security appliances. One ad reads: "Is your network secure? Are your sure? Are you really, really sure?" Another says, "What is your network defense missing" I've even seen ads with fake hackers trying to break into your system. Now network security is a serious matter, and it is something that you must do. And marketers learned a long time ago that they can move you more with fear than anything else -- there's a reason that the nightly news is full of death and mayhem.
Some of these things are legitimate, legit, sane things to do. Marketers are not above scaring you into making decisions. I know. I write ad copy for my assessment tool, and its hard to convey a complex subject in just a few lines of text. But when we're reading, it's our job to sit back calmly and make wise decisions. Think, don't fear.
I agree with your assessment that we need to think through things and not fear what we don't have all the facts about, but I do wonder if there aren't other ways to use small planes. I mean, terrorists trained to fly commercial jets which are as complicated if not more so than small planes. I understand what you are saying by the plane being a beer can (having flown in small planes myself) and I understand about the lack of fuel, but what about taking other bomb material into the plane...say C4? Or using the plane as a way to disperse biological weapons? Last time I got on a private plane, there was no one screening my carry on items! Just pointing out, the gas/plane as bomb is not the only possibility.
The problem with the perception that the terrorists were 'trained to fly commercial jets' is that it isn't true. They demonstrated that a person with some training can steer an airliner that is already flying, into a target, which is no more than being an autopilot. This differs a bunch from getting an airplane into the air. (I am a private pilot). Some airplanes are very simple, but these are ones that only hold as much cargo as a motorcycle would.
And actually, if you are boarding a private plane, it is likely that the owner (or the passenger paying for the flight) has a much better knowledge of you than the FAA, FBI, or CIA would, and so you have, in effect, been through a deeper screening process than any commercial passenger.
I suspect that if a person showed up to take a brief aerial tour, with six duffel bags that they couldn't carry by themselves, that there would be a lot of questions asked indeed. Anything purse sized, from half a mile up, is not going to manage to be much of a threat to anyone on the ground.
Bear in mind that anthrax (for instance) is a naturally occurring organism in nature, present in soils and dust all over. Most biological weapons take a lot of care to deliver in a still-dangerous state, since our bodies know how to deal with them in the normal state.