Missing MH370: Spotlight on problem of bogus passports

Regardless of how the mystery surrounding Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 ends, it has already left a mark on global aviation security.

Security experts in the United States - a country which put in place some of the most stringent airport checks after the Sept 11 attacks in 2001 - say that airports all around the world will now likely review how they process passports to ferret out bogus ones.

"I think the fact that two people were able to board this airplane with stolen passports - even if they have nothing to do with the crashed airplane - underscores a vulnerability," said Mr Brian Michael Jenkins, a former member of then President Bill Clinton's White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security who is now senior adviser to the president of the policy think- tank Rand corporation.

"Governments are going to be reviewing those procedures to ensure that people are boarding flights with a valid passport."

And if terrorism turns out to be a key factor in the MH370 incident, there may well be a halt to the recent shift towards screening passengers based on risk from a one-size-fits-all approach. For passengers, that might mean recent changes to improve convenience for frequent fliers - like an express airport security lane - are rolled back.

The presence on board the missing plane of two passengers travelling on stolen passports has been a key source of speculation about foul play on the flight.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is now checking the fingerprints of the two passengers provided by the Malaysians against its database of criminals.

Recent Interpol reports, however, suggest that passengers travelling on stolen passports are not entirely uncommon.

The global police agency estimates that last year, over one billion passengers got on flights without having their passports screened against its database of more than 40 million stolen or lost travel documents. Of the passengers that were screened, some 60,000 were found to have been using stolen passports.

Experts say, though, that tightening controls may be more complex than just making all immigration agents query the database.

"Checking every single passenger against a list of millions of stolen passports, just the sheer volume of it, inevitably there are going to be errors. If you are going to check, then you have to have a way of resolving the discrepancy. That's going to slow things down, people are going to miss flights and it will cause irritation," said Mr Jenkins.

If anything, countries have been moving towards loosening immigration controls rather than tightening them. This is in part a response to passengers' increasing impatience over intrusive procedures and also a move by airports to focus resources on passengers deemed to be of the highest risk.

In January, the European Commission started to allow passengers to take on board larger bottles of liquids purchased from duty-free stores outside the European Union, with an eye on completely lifting restrictions in 2016. The ban on large containers of liquids and gels was put in place in 2006 after British authorities uncovered a plot to bomb transatlantic flights with liquid explosives hidden in soft drink bottles.

In the US, the Transportation Security Administration recently launched a Pre-Check programme that allows pre-approved passengers to skip many screening inconveniences like removing shoes or taking a laptop out of a bag.

In December, the Federal Communications Commission said it was going to consider lifting the ban on in-flight mobile phone use. A passenger flying cross-country in the US would have phone signal for much of his journey.

"I think we are seeing a little bit of a disturbing trend," said Mr Jeffrey Price, an airport security coordinator trainer for the American Association of Airport Executives. "We're kind of doing what we always do where the further away we get from tragedy, the more we forget that it happens and the more we forget why we do the things we do."

Mr Price, who also owns aviation management consulting firm Leading Strategies, added that the real impact on security will depend on the precise circumstances surrounding the fate of the Malaysia Airlines jet.

Mr Douglas Laird, a former secret service agent who is now president of aviation security firm Laird and Associates, echoes these sentiments.

"If this aircraft was brought down by a bomb, what was the explosive, were chemicals combined on the airplane to make the explosive or did they come aboard the airliner with the explosive already made," he said.

He said, however, that every airline incident inevitably leads to reviews that seek to stop the same mistake from happening.

He recounted, for example, how a presidential commission proposed more stringent screening of checked-in bags after Trans World Airlines flight 800 blew up in 1996, even though the cause was ultimately deemed to be mechanical failure.

"I would hope some good comes out of it and that we decide how to do things better. It might be a better way of screening passengers, it might be a better way of screening luggage, but (what is) more important to me is we need to get a handle on stolen and fraudulent passports."

jeremyau@sph.com.sg

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On solving the case and preventing a recurrence

THREE experts from the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) made several recommendations to help solve the mystery and prevent future incidents. Below is an edited excerpt of their suggestions.

•Enhance transnational coordination for aviation safety

THE International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) has long maintained a massive database of lost and stolen passports. And though nearly every country on the planet is a member of the France-based organisation, very few regularly check suspect passports against the roughly 40 million documents on hand.

A widely adopted practice would greatly reduce human trafficking and other illicit activities, reveal criminals wanted by the police, and help prevent possible terrorist threats to commercial aviation.

•Explore the possibility of a terrorist act

INTERPOL'S identification of at least one of the stolen passport holders as an apparent asylum seeker suggests that early speculation that Flight MH370's disappearance was the result of terrorism, possibly by a Uighur passenger from north-west China's Xinjiang province, was premature. But terrorism cannot be ruled out yet.

•Boost inadequate maritime domain awareness in the South China Sea

GIVEN the availability of highly capable maritime domain awareness technology, regional governments within the 18-member East Asia Summit should use this incident to empower and encourage member countries to deploy such technology to fill the current gaps in coverage over the South China Sea. (Maritime domain awareness refers to the understanding of anything associated with the maritime domain that could impact security, safety, the economy or the environment.)

•Empower regional architecture to enhance cooperation

THOSE 18 countries should also better coordinate under the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) and maritime security working groups of the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting Plus, to strengthen and enhance collective capabilities for HADR and search and rescue cooperation.

Nine nations deploying assets in the search effort for MH370 is an impressive show of goodwill, but the ability to practically coordinate those resources would vastly enhance the efficiency of the search and rescue effort.

•Improve government-to-government communication related to emergencies and disasters

WE HAVE repeatedly witnessed poor transnational communication around disasters and emergencies in the Indo-Pacific, from the tragic 2010 shooting of Hong Kong citizens in Manila to the current search for MH370.

The Chinese authorities, rightly concerned about the safety of their citizens, have been openly critical of Malaysian agencies' management of the situation, creating unhelpful tensions and diverting resources from the search.

Mechanisms for enhanced private communication between governments and critical agencies should be pre-arranged and practised in joint exercises by East Asia Summit member nations. Airlines should also be included in these exercises and mechanisms.

Mr Ernest Z. Bower is a senior adviser and Sumitro Chair for South-east Asia studies; Mr Christopher K. Johnson is a senior adviser and Freeman Chair in China studies; and Mr Thomas M. Sanderson is senior fellow and co-director of the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS. This article first appeared on CogitASIA, the blog for the Asia programmes at CSIS.

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