Experts: Aviation’s Backyard Is Breached

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Arie Egozi

Israeli security experts were not surprised by the news that writings in Arab were discovered on EasyJet airplanes. This disturbing event is being investigated by authorities in France. The writing were discovered on the fuel tanks of four airplanes belonging to EasyJet in four different airports in France.

For security reasons, it was not revealed which airports are being investigated, but the company stated that although they are currently looking into the source of the writing, they do not believe it to be a threat.

According to EasyJet, after talking with authorities it was decided that these were no more than graffiti: “EasyJet takes any security matter very seriously and will not operate flights unless it is determined that the flight is completely safe,” the company said.

These mysterious writings were discovered when Europe is still heavy with burden and concern over terror attacks by radical Islamists following the Paris terror attack two weeks ago, in which 130 people were murdered.

In Israel there was less of a surprise, as it is being claimed here for a while now that while security inspections for passengers is more or less effective, the “backyard” – meaning the operational areas of airports – in many places in the US and Europe is breached.

“Authorizations are being lost, others are being found instead – this whole business in breached in many places so there is no surprise that this happened,” said one expert.

While Israel is taking precautions to protect operational areas in airports, such steps are ineffective in Europe and the US, say the experts. “When there is a terror threat such as this, it becomes obvious that there are major breaches there.”

As many may remember, the Russian airplane that was knocked down in Sinai exploded in the air by an explosive that was brought on board, according to suspicions, by one of the airport’s employees in Sharm El-Sheikh.