Security at a class D tower

Dallas wrote:
I toured the new state of the art tower at Addison airport last week and
was struck by all the security measures they employed.

john smith wrote:
Everything but a NOAA weather radio.

Newps wrote:
That's the union whining, as usual. All facilities have high speed
internet access in all operating quarters. When ever there is bad
weather around we will always have a web page up with a weather radar
site, usually Weather Underground as that self updates every 8-10 minutes.

How do you rate internet access and not a weather radio?

On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 12:54:49 -0700, Matt Barrow wrote:

And phone lines never go down, and radar systems never fail, and electical
power never goes down...

Right. I'm fond of backups. I keep trying to see where I can store an
extra engine in my club's 182s, for example.

- Andrew

john smith wrote:
Dallas wrote:

I toured the new state of the art tower at Addison airport last week and
was struck by all the security measures they employed.


john smith wrote:

Everything but a NOAA weather radio.


Newps wrote:

That's the union whining, as usual. All facilities have high speed
internet access in all operating quarters. When ever there is bad
weather around we will always have a web page up with a weather radar
site, usually Weather Underground as that self updates every 8-10 minutes.


How do you rate internet access and not a weather radio?



We never had a weather radio. Why would you even want one? I work in a
tower, I can see the thunderstorms coming 150 miles away. What's a
weather radio going to do? Tell me my city is under a thunderstorm
watch? Well, no ****. You're missing the point, the complaining has
nothing to do with weather radios, which nobody ever had in the first place.

Dallas wrote:
I toured the new state of the art tower at Addison airport last week
and was struck by all the security measures they employed. [...]
I assume this is all a reaction to our new terrorist threat, but I
haven't been able to come up with any reason for all that security.
Let's say some terrorists took the tower, what's the worst thing
they could do?

They could hijack it and crash it into a 182!

Seriously... I've only thought of three things that you probably couldn't
easily do some other way.

The first one has already been mentioned - clear more than one aircraft
to land at once, or similar. This probably wouldn't work too well in
day VFR, but at night or in bad weather, it might work.

The second one would be to flood the internal comm links with bogus
traffic. My assumption here is that towers have land lines (or equal),
which aren't connected to the public telephone network, that go to other
towers, centers, etc. You could keep at least a few people at some of
those other facilities busy for a little while with lots of bogus calls,
but it probably wouldn't take long for the other facilities to figure
out that the tower at KXYZ isn't on their side anymore. (If a
"hijacked" tower is an actual concern, do the other facilities have
"isolate" switches on the comm links, so they can cut KXYZ out of the
network if it's misbehaving?)

The third one would be to shut off the landing lights, ILS, beacon, etc.
I realize you can't "adjust" the ILS to tell a plane that the runway is
ten feet lower than it is (like in the movies), but you _might_ be able
to shut it off entirely. Again, in day VFR, or if the incoming planes
are far off, this wouldn't do much. At night or in bad weather, it
might be a little more interesting.

Matt Roberds

wrote in message
...

They could hijack it and crash it into a 182!

Seriously... I've only thought of three things that you probably couldn't
easily do some other way.

The first one has already been mentioned - clear more than one aircraft
to land at once, or similar. This probably wouldn't work too well in
day VFR, but at night or in bad weather, it might work.


If VFR both pilots would have to miss the landing clearance issued to the
other aircraft. If IFR it's unlikely there'd be two aircraft in position to
land at the same time.



The second one would be to flood the internal comm links with bogus
traffic. My assumption here is that towers have land lines (or equal),
which aren't connected to the public telephone network, that go to other
towers, centers, etc. You could keep at least a few people at some of
those other facilities busy for a little while with lots of bogus calls,
but it probably wouldn't take long for the other facilities to figure
out that the tower at KXYZ isn't on their side anymore. (If a
"hijacked" tower is an actual concern, do the other facilities have
"isolate" switches on the comm links, so they can cut KXYZ out of the
network if it's misbehaving?)


Yes.



The third one would be to shut off the landing lights, ILS, beacon, etc.
I realize you can't "adjust" the ILS to tell a plane that the runway is
ten feet lower than it is (like in the movies), but you _might_ be able
to shut it off entirely. Again, in day VFR, or if the incoming planes
are far off, this wouldn't do much. At night or in bad weather, it
might be a little more interesting.


They could turn lights off, but not an ILS.

Well, of course, everybody knows that Govt employees' and members of
Congress' lives are far more precious than those of the rest of us.

After all, the entire federal Govt came close to closing down a while
back when a C152 strayed into the Washington ADIZ.

The 9/11 terrorists must really being enjoying this from wherever they
are.

"Paul kgyy" wrote in message
ps.com...

Well, of course, everybody knows that Govt employees' and members of
Congress' lives are far more precious than those of the rest of us.


Most personnel at Class D towers are private sector employees.

On Apr 7, 10:24 pm, C J Campbell
wrote:
On 2007-04-07 12:07:18 -0700, Dallas said:



I assume this is all a reaction to our new terrorist threat, but I haven't
been able to come up with any reason for all that security. Let's say
some terrorists took the tower, what's the worst thing they could do?

I suppose they could steal stuff. Thieves are a more serious problem
than terrorists. A class D tower would be a very low value terrorist
target. At most, there are only a couple people in there and they
probably carry little cash.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

When visiting our tower here in Sacramento (contract) you have to call
up and get buzzed through a series of security doors. That's pre-911
and never made sense to me. Just down the street is the FSDO. The FSDO
is apparently #1 on the terrorist watch list. You can't even walk up
to the building w/o being approached by security. The FSDO employees
park in a specical security area just in case you considered messing
with their cars. If you do not have an appointment you are not suppose
to be anywhere near the building. Once you are in you have to get a
badge just to talk to the receiptionist. I've often had to go in there
and spent more time getting the badge than getting the task done. I
guess if the FSDO got attacked the 121 chief check pilots would
eventually lose their check priv, and soon after all airline pilots
would no longer be able to do their recurrent 121 training. Within 5
years things could get irritating if every FSDO was off line.

-Robert

On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 12:00:10 +0000, Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

They could turn lights off, but not an ILS.

Why not? A friend had an emergency a while back that required landing
against traffic in IMC. The tower told him they were "spooling up" (yes,
that was the phrase; I don't know why {8^) the ILS for the runway in the
direction he was to be using. I presume that they also shut down the
other side, and that they swapped back after my friend landed (which he
did quite successfully, I'm pleased to add).

Admittedly, this was not a class D but a class B. Why, if so, would that
make a difference?

- Andrew

"Newps" wrote in message
...


john smith wrote:


How do you rate internet access and not a weather radio?



We never had a weather radio. Why would you even want one? I work in a
tower, I can see the thunderstorms coming 150 miles away.

Wheee Doggies, that boy has good eyes!! :~)