Vital Systems Security

One of the interesting commentators on the recently disrupted plot to blow up the fuel lines that supply JFK is Michael Boyd, an aviation security expert who is head of the Boyd Group, a security consulting firm. He shows up frequently on the news shows, and has an interesting analysis on his website that makes a number of points relevant to VSS. First, he notes that expressions of surprise on the part of officials and the misconceptions about the potential devastation from a blast (the whole pipeline is very unlikely to blow up) indicate a lack of understanding and anticipatory thinking about an attack on an obvious target like a fuel line. Second, and perhaps more interesting from our perspective, is that the emphasis has been placed on blast damage itself rather than the effects of taking out the fuel source for a vital system like aviation. But the “vital systems” dimension of the threat, he claims, is the important one:

Jet fuel pipelines are the supply arteries to the air transportation system. Cut any substantial part of it, and air transport goes into a tail spin. It’s not rocket science. Any comprehensive, professional airport vulnerability analysis would illuminate it. But that’s miles from anything done by Homeland Security, an organization run at the top by W’s buddies and other political appointees. Planning comprehensive, aggressive, and anticipative security programs is light years beyond their ability. The reaction to this latest plot proves it.

He continues to argue that the vulnerabilities of the aviation system are linked to specific features of the fuel delivery infrastructure:

So if the existing jet fuel pipelines are destroyed - say, in a plot to attack five or six major hubsite airports - the air transportation system could literally begin to shut down within days. That’s because, again, there is no adequate alternative system that can deliver fuel to these major airports in the event the pipelines are damaged or destroyed. Tanker trucks? Nope - there’s nowhere near any such excess truck capacity at major cities to funnel, say, one million gallons of jet-A, every day to a mid-size hub airport. Even if the existing inventory of tanker rolling stock could be immediately diverted and converted to supplying jet fuel to airports, it would leave gas stations high and dry, not to mention, if it’s winter, nobody to deliver heating oil.

Another thinker of vital systems.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 1:46 pm and is filed under aviation security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.