Airline Bomb Threats Can’t Be Ignored

The next "war" on America is being fought as we speak, but you’re not noticing it.

Yet.

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That’s because it’s not being fought with bullets and bombs; it’s being fought with disruption, chaos and inconvenience. It’s being done through social media, anonymously, but with enough power that 140 characters can literally change the course of an airline flight.

Sixteen times in the last five days, someone has used Twitter to make a bomb threat against domestic airlines. Sixteen times the airlines have taken it seriously enough to either divert a flight – a threat made against a Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to Orlando was diverted to Dallas to be checked for explosives – or to have it evacuated to a distant or unused runway prior to takeoff or after landing.

Airline security experts say the airlines make the call on what action to take when a threat is received, based on the credibility of the threat, up to and including diverting an aircraft already in-flight. But, really, what other call is there to make? Because the one time one of these threats is disregarded is going to be the time where the wolf really showed up and made the boy cry.

Douglas Laird, an aviation consultant and former head of security for Northwest Airlines, told USA Today that "In the history of aviation sabotage, I don't believe there's ever been a threat called in where there's actually been a bomb.”

But social media has changed the game. This isn’t your father’s phone prank any longer. This isn’t 12-year-old boys cold-calling people and saying they’re from ACME Appliances and asking if their refrigerator is running, and then giggling when they deliver the "Well you better go catch it!" punchline.

Social media, and cyber-terrorism, has upped the ante. And there’s only so much that law enforcement can do with an IP address.

This is how it’s going to be done. This is how it is being done. Disruption. Chaos. Inconvenience. Even fear.

Ever hear of the Six Degrees of Separation theory? Or, perhaps more in the pop culture vein, the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? It’s based on the premise that you are never more than six people away from knowing anyone on the planet. Yes, even Mr. Footloose himself. (When I first heard about this years ago, I tried it just for the heck of it. I chose President Clinton. I know my brother, who was friends with Clinton’s campaign manager in Kentucky back in the ‘90s, who knew the President. Boom. Four. Scary.)

The point I’m trying to make is, you might not think much of one plane with 150-200 passengers being diverted to another city or being moved to a remote runway as nothing more than precaution. Now think about everybody they know and Six Degrees of Separation. The business meeting they’ll be late for or miss entirely. The ride from the airport waiting to pick them up, who is now late, who can’t get in touch with the school to make sure her son doesn’t get on the bus because she won’t be home in time.

And so on.

Disruption of everyday life.

Finding these cyber-hackers is like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. The FBI is the best in the business but these threats via social media are yet another example of the new kind of war it faces.