Airport Perimeter Security

The Commercial Airport Perimeter Security Challenge

By Clint Hilbert - - April 22, 2015

Introduction

The sheer volume of air travel sustained in the United States by a massive infrastructure, most of which has been constructed and designed during different historical stages of security awareness, imposes a heavy burden on federal agencies, such as TSA, to help prevent security lapses.

As noted in an April 2015 assessment by the Associated Press (Investigation details perimeter breaches at US airports, Associated Press, Martha Mendoza and Justin Pritchard, April 9, 2015), “Airports are supposed to inform the TSA of such lapses, but the federal Government Accountability Office in 2009 found not all incidents were reported. In 2011, a TSA report shared with a congressional subcommittee counted 1,388 perimeter security breaches since 2001 at the 450 airports that TSA regulates.”

Of known incidents, the Associated Press reported 44 intrusions on airport runways, taxiways and gate areas, with the highest volume of incidents at international airports.

The common root cause to a decade’s worth of breaches of airport perimeters in the United States, according to publicly available information, is that most subjects simply disregarded or failed to recognize the fence line and gate operations as a significant deterrent. The average airport security perimeter system does not “appear” adequate to stop, nor significantly delay, subjects from entering the airport and reaching restricted areas and runways. Both the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have taken significant steps to address these concerns.

While none of these breaches ended with a catastrophic event, as a whole, they clearly and publicly portray our commercial aviation facilities as soft targets. This paper suggests additional solutions to further strengthen the perimeter security of our nation’s airports consistent with TSA’s and FAA’s guidance.

Solutions

The following solutions are intended to address the two most common vulnerabilities found in the review of the above security incidents regarding breaches of airport perimeters: (1) fence climbing and (2) gate or fence crashing with a vehicle. Most of the publicized breaches were done by individuals acting alone under varying circumstances, some with and some without vehicles being involved. These people were mostly U.S. citizens.

Therefore, the solutions presented here are intended to prevent the hundreds of predictable breaches from happening … all by ordinary citizens jumping over and crashing through fences. As an added benefit, these basic solutions will provide a greater level of protection and delay against an organized attack in the future. Additionally, these recommendations are made to increase security while minimizing costs to the airport.

The perimeter security fence should incorporate all elements of a Smart Fence in order to create a total Perimeter Intrusion Detection System that increases delay times on forced entry.

Therefore, any fencing solution should include a fence product that is anti-climb and anti-cut and has the ability to perform multiple functions on the perimeter of the property while being able to notify security of an attempted breach.

Fence requirements should include ASTM testing for F-2781-10, Standard Practice for Testing Forced Entry, Ballistic and Low Impact Resistance of Security Fence Systems.

The perimeter fence should also be provided by a manufacturer with experience in providing high security applications.

Airport perimeter security can and should include the following items mounted on the fencing to minimize construction costs while maximizing the perimeter security. A Smart Fence can include Intrusion Detection Systems mounted in the rails, lighting systems mounted on the posts, silent and audible alarms mounted on the fence, Superposts (posts that are 5’ higher than the fence line) for mounting IR and PTZ cameras while still having the ability to offer crash rated cables and crash gates in the design.

The way to incorporate all these items into a single fence is to use a product which offers rigid UL conduit rails for voltage and to use a manufacturer who has products dedicated for these type of systems. The fencing system requires access points on the posts and rails that are water-tight for electrical to be mounted “in the fence system” (photo A, below).

The anti-cut, anti-climb fence should not have any accessible areas that would allow a foot or a hand hold (photo B, below). The fencing should offer a variety of infill options, such as louvered mesh, expanded metal, and welded wire. These options are secured by posts, rails, brackets and unions and tamper resistant fasteners (Detail 1 and Detail 2), creating a secured anti-climb fence that has no accessible nuts on the outside (attack side) of the fence.

Most importantly, the fence should be tested to ASTM F-2781-10. The fence should offer increased delay times to potential breach of up to 4.5 minutes using common hand tools.

Currently chain-link fencing provides less than a minute of protection to breach attempts. The extended delay should allow a response by security prior to any intrusion on the premises.

Photo A – In this "test field" section of fence, observe the electrical conduit for lights, cameras, Intrusion Detection Systems running through the fenceline. Cameras mounted on fence posts – no need for additional trenching or ground work.

Photo B – No accessible hand or foot holds from the outside.

Detail 1 – Posts, rails, unions and brackets – holding the security mesh in place.

Detail 2 – Brackets and unions holding the mesh in place – no accessible nuts or hand and foot holds.

Design

Establish a perimeter “secure zone” between two layers of perimeter fencing, the inner fence having a minimum height of 12’ and climb resistant features, keeping an average distance of 10’ between fences when covering open field boundaries where possible. The inner fence line is also used to separate internal restricted areas to keep the anti-climb features where it is needed the most. There are dozens of aesthetically pleasing perimeter fences that would be an improvement over chain link and offer more delay.

Establish vehicle crash barriers around the entire airfield and restricted areas. The images below show typical vehicle crash barriers and bollards used at critical facilities.

Mount high-security welded wire, louvered panels or expanded metal fence products to protect critical facilities and restricted areas. These fence systems offer the highest level of anti-climb and anti-cut ratings on the market and are able to include smart fence designs.

Consider bullet-resistant panels to protect critical equipment against long gun attacks. The strategic placement of just a few panels can offer protection to those essential pieces of equipment that are critical during emergencies.

Consider using a triple-redundant layer of low-cost, low FAR/NAR, standalone Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS) configured through a physical security information management system (PSIMS) to alert on single-point-triple-activation (SPTA) alarms (a PIDS-generated alarm indicating a confirmed breach) that produces a protocol-laden instructional mass notification to security personnel, law enforcement officials, key managers, essential operational employees and critical infrastructure support teams. This is one of the most reliable passive-monitored PIDS configurations supporting intrusion response protocols.

Modify vehicle and personnel gates to be parallel to the fence line using a Sally Port Nautilus or Double-Nautilus pattern to prevent crash-through attempts (in conjunction with vehicle crash barriers supporting the fence lines) along with internal serpentine channels to delay attack times. The diagrams below show gate configurations that prevent crash-through attempts.

Consider new low-tech products that require little maintenance and can be quickly redeployed where needed. For example, Betafence’s Terrablock™, pictured below, is an expeditionary fence system that combines height, climb and cut resistance and vehicle crash protection in a low-cost, one-pass-to-install system.

Conclusion

Financing and Affordability

The consolidated purchasing power of 450 airports is significant enough to drive savings through economies of scale. National service contracts should be considered with security integrators, installers and manufacturers to help drive reliability and consistency in PIDS and performance-based systems. Fence rentals and rent-to-own options should also be considered, especially with technology products and certain surface mounted or expeditionary type fence products.

Participation

The President’s 2011 National Strategy for Counterterrorism and the 2013 National Infrastructure Protection Plan, through “voluntary” participation by airports to protect themselves may be insufficient to meet security needs in a changing environment.

According to Section 3.2.1 of the NIPP, Transportation Systems Sector-Specific Plan, aviation security guidelines are completely voluntary. Until a robust set of performance-based aviation perimeter security standards can be developed and mandated to airport owners and operators in the form of prescriptive CIPs (Critical Infrastructure Plans, similar to that of the electric industry’s CIP-014), and funded through the entire commercial aviation industry, we are not likely to see rapid improvement.

TSA’s ongoing efforts, aided by appropriate industry input and the development of pro-active and consistent measures to protect airport perimeters will be critical to ensuring the safety and protection of the nation’s airport infrastructure.