The Sunday Times (ST) said questions had been raised on whether Malaysia alerted its neighbours when the aircraft disappeared so that they could protect themselves in the event that it was a hijacking and their countries were targeted.
If the flight was hijacked, they told the daily, many others in the region – including Singapore – might have been at risk of a terror attack.
A former senior Israeli counter-terrorism and aviation security officer in the Israel Security Agency, Doron Bergerbest-Eilon, told ST that aeroplanes were part of the arsenal of global terror and a missing aeroplane could be a sign of a mega security attack.
Any country that loses sight of one of its aircraft must alert other countries, he said.
"Was this done when the aeroplane went missing?" he asked.
"Imagine an aeroplane that has taken off in another country landing on Orchard Road. An aircraft is in the hands of a pilot and he could have been incited or motivated. He could take things into his own hands and do something like this."
Bergerbest-Eilon told ST that this was a plausible scenario after what happened on September 11, 2001, in the United States when al-Qaeda members flew hijacked aircraft into buildings in New York and Washington, DC.
"In recent years, air piracy and terrorism have come together in a series of parallel events," he told ST.
Counter-terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) told the daily that the MH370 disappearance was a "turning point in aviation security and a catalyst that will force governments in Asia to enhance aviation security".
An aviation security analyst also said that there was a need to tighten security at airports.
"The security on the ground was not good enough," he told ST, referring to two Iranians who had used stolen passports to board MH370.
They also agreed with Dr Bilveer Singh, who has studied terrorism for more than 30 years, that for now, everyone on board MH370 was a suspect.
"Someone on board the plane – the pilot, crew, passengers – had deep knowledge about how to divert it and avoid detection," the ST report quoted him as saying.
"That person or persons exploited security failures in the system."
Bergerbest-Eilon called for aircraft crew profiles to be updated regularly, adding that it was especially important to do a thorough security background check on pilots.
Among the questions that must be asked in updating the profiles of air crew: when was the last vetting done? How has a person's religious or political beliefs changed over the years? Does he make radical statements and when did he start doing so?
"Just because a pilot gets his pilot's licence when he was 27 does not make him a bona fide pilot for the rest of his life," Bergerbest-Eilon said in the ST report.
Bilveer also asked if an air mashal was on board flight MH370.
The air marshal programme began in 1970, after a series of airline hijackings, and was expanded after the 9/11 attacks. These officers are trained to safeguard passengers and crew aboard aircraft.
As the search for MH370 enters its third week, the experts said there was a need for a comprehensive and multi-layered overhaul of international aviation security system and not just a "tinkering". – March 23, 2014.
Source: The Malaysian Insider
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