The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reportedly spent more than $100 million on a Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, which was intended to protect the local airports from terrorist attack. (Some sources put the cost at $300 million.) How well is it working? Not so well. Lost kayakers, amorous drunken power boaters and jet skiers out of gas have all managed to blunder through the security system wholly undetected at the two city airports located on the water.
Last weekend, two kayakers went kayaking on Jamaica Bay at night in a double kayak. They capsized, lost a paddle, and got confused at to where they were. They used their one remaining paddle to make their way to the closest land they could see, which happened to be the end of New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport’s Runway 4L. The airport’s perimeter detection system didn’t notice their arrival. The two walked until they found maintenance workers and asked for help.
At the end of June, a drunken captain of a fishing boat, went below to participate in a what is described as a “three way sex romp.” While he has otherwise engaged, the boat ran into runway approach lights at La Guardia Airport. Police were unable to reach the boat to determine whether or not it was a threat for about 30 minutes, even though a Port Authority police vessel was tied up at a nearby dock, because budget cuts had stopped patrol boat operations after dark.
In August, 2012, a jet skier ran out of fuel in Jamaica Bay. He swam toward the Kennedy International Airport lights, climbed an 8-foot fence, made his way across two intersecting runways — an estimated distance of nearly two miles — before he was spotted on a terminal ramp by an airline employee. The jet skier was wearing a bright yellow life jacket. The perimeter security system failed to detect him.
The problem is not new. Eleven years ago in 2003, three young boaters wandered onto a runway at Kennedy International Airport after their fishing raft washed ashore near the airport.
In 2010, it was reported that the airport security system had so many false alarms that it is not being used, even during periods when the airports are on heightened terror alert.
Due to budget cuts, boat patrols at night have been cut back. They were started again around La Guardia airport following the collision by three-some on the fishing boat, but have not yet been reinstated at Kennedy Airport.
After the jet skier swam ashore in 2012, Isaac Yeffet, former chief of security for Israeli airline El Al, commented “Thank God it wasn’t a terrorist, but we have to look at it as if we had another attack. That’s the only way we’ll improve the system.”
After the latest security breach, a spokesman for the Port Authority police union called the Perimeter Intrusion Detection System a failure.
“Once again a perimeter security breach at JFK Airport raises serious concerns about the Port Authority’s Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, a system the PAPBA believes is a failure. The PA has the vessels, purchased with federal funds, and Coast Guard certified marine police officers to perform a 24-hour marine perimeter patrol with rescue capability.’
Well, if the public, via their elected officials, is unwilling to provide adequate funding to allow 24 hour operation of the patrol boats, the authorities have to make do with what they can do with the funding they have. As I recall, a certain network is fond of pointing out that freedom isn’t free. Neither is security. Now is the time to pay the necessary taxes to protect that freedom !
The problem seems to be that whomever made the decision, chose to pick technology over human security personnel. Now after spending hundreds of millions they have a technology that apparently doesn’t work.
Peachy. All that money down the tubes for technology that doesn’t work…what I am sure does work are the man-portable SAMs that are proliferating all over the Middle East. Pray someone doesn’t sneak into the security zone under the approach corridor with a few of those in their boat.