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Flying Into the Unknown: A Hidden Threat in Modern Aviation

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       Often when we fly, we assume a safe flight is solely reliant on the pilots but often weather can make significant impacts and can often leave passengers injured. An example of this, is a Hawaiin Airline flight to Sydney Australia that seemed to be flying smoothly but all of a sudden it hit turbulence that caused some passenger to lift out of their seats with some hitting their heads on the ceiling (pictured below). Oxygen masks deployed due to the sudden drop of pressure, causing many passengers to also become very dizzy. Once the flight landed, 12 passengers were assessed at the terminal for pains caused by the turbulence resulting in 3 being hospitalized. A passenger on the flight gave ABC News the following statement:  “The plane just dropped. We weren’t prepared.” Sultan Baskonyali ( Keane, I.)     If you've ever flown on a plane, odds are you've experience turbulence but hopefully none as bad as this event. Usually, its harmless but can cau...
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Behind the Badge: Addressing Insider Threats in the Aviation Industry

       For the majority of airline passengers and pilots, there is a lot of trust put on the aircraft maintainers but sometimes they can pose a significant threat. Insider threats in the aviation industry can occur in various forms, including sabotage, theft of sensitive information, and intentional damage to aircrafts. These insiders can be pilots, mechanics, baggage handlers, flight attendants, ground crew, etc. but is mostly caused by employees with access to secure areas and sensitive data who misuse their positions (BaMaung, D.).     An example of this  is in 2019 there was a case where a disgruntled American Airlines mechanic purposefully interfered with an aircraft's Air Data Module (ADM) causing the plane to abort takeoff (Jones, D.). “Surveillance footage showed Alani deliberately obstructing the Air Data Module using a dark, Styrofoam-like material—highlighting the malicious intent behind the sabotage (Jones, 2019).”     T SA plays ...
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When Ethics Fail: Lessons from Boeing Crashes for Aircraft Maintainers

      Being able to trust your life with the pilots and maintainers of the aircrafts you ride in has been becoming more and more difficult. Over the past couple of years, there are videos after videos showing both commercial and military aircrafts falling from the sky and parts breaking off, resulting in people getting hurt or even dying. In October 2018 and March 2019, 2 separate Boeing 737 Max's crashed that killed 346 people total due to the mistakes made by manufactures and engineers ( Kesslen, B.) . After these crashes, Boeing was put into a 3-year probationary period to avoid criminal charges but toward the end of this period, a door unexpectedly blew off of a Boeing plane during takeoff, so the DOJ resumed prosecution against Boeing. However, the DOJ and Boeing just reached a settlement agreement where Boeing would pay 1.1 billion dollars in fees and to the victims' families to put an end to the cases brought against them ( Rabinowitz, H) .  The House Com...
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