An airport in Papua New Guinea was ransacked by a group of thirty armed men. They took about thirty passengers and nine security guards hostage while they looted food and office equipment. The airport security guards were outnumbered and ordered at gunpoint to huddle with the other hostages. The siege lasted two hours and the men escaped after failing to break into the safe of a national carrier.
I think any airport, regardless of size, should be well protected against a variety of potential threats because of the expected consequences of a breach of security. If the security isn't well-prepped, any crisis can cause air travel to go down, which in turn could affect the economy and general faith in that nation. It would be particularly bad if a tourist was killed in a crisis that could have been prevented by better security, as it could create international conflict.
Smaller airports should be required to have just as much security as other airports because events like this can happen. Like Zach said, an airports number one priority should be safety and in order to avoid situations such as this one and possibly worse, they need more security.
It is so important the security is equipt with anything they may need to prevent this, including more guards. It is important to keep the people safe, otherwise no one will want to go to that airport.
I think all airports should have different numbers of security guards but I think it should be a large number compared to the size of the airport to be well prepared for when things like this happen
I don't feel an increase in security forces would help maintain their safety. From the article described, there were thirty armed men who attacked the airport. That is an absurd number of people to not notice traveling into an airport with assault rifles. I do think better procedures and safety protocols could have prevented the attackers from progressing as far as they did in their raid.
i believe all airports and places where there are many innocent civilians, safety should be the top priority. Although stoping 30 armed men would be difficult in any circumstance, perhaps police forced could have arrived sooner or found a way to put down the men. security should always be important and a goal worked towards every day. But no security could stop 30 men without a serious gun fight, putting many many lives in danger.
There should be more security at a small airport because people may think that it is small therefore they can do whatever they want. Also, security should be present in many areas at all times in an airport.
Security at airports, although a (forgive my French) pain in the A$$, is obviously very important. But to protect against 30 armed men would require a military presence. Unfortunately that would also piss some people off. Geez! 30 men?!?!
I think airport security is important no matter the size of the airport. People still fly on those planes and still deserve to feel safe, regardless of the size of the airport. They might even need slightly more security because it is a smaller facility and could be more prone to attack. But either way, I feel all airports should be safe from attacks.
along with larger staff of security guards maybe they should also be trained with more intensity so that even if for some reason there weren't alot of them there they could still fight back against the attackers and get them under control.
I doubt Papau New Guinea is capable of defending every single airport, they must allocate the security they have as best they can between small and large airports.
Airport safety and security should be a very high priority when it comes to all countries. A plane can be used as an extremely deadly weapon and create the potential to kill thousands of people.
