The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday it would determine who was responsible for allowing the illegal intrusion of a female passenger into the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s restricted area after reviewing a report by Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIA).
“The TIA has conducted a comprehensive inspection on the restricted area after the event and identified the locations that need to be reinforced,” said Chi Wen-jong (祁文中), director of the Department of Aviation and Navigation, adding the company also held a meeting yesterday with representatives from the Aviation Police, China Airlines and the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Service.
The security of the nation’s largest airport was tested on Thursday after a 48-year-old woman entered the airport’s restricted area through a crack between a cement wall and barbed wire and eventually boarded a China Airlines aircraft. She was not found until the cabin crew of the aircraft conducted a routine inspection before takeoff.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
TIA president Samuel Lin (林鵬良) said he was “shocked” to hear of the event and decided to do an on-site inspection with the Aviation Police yesterday morning, in which the team found several flaws in Taoyuan airport’s security.
They found the ground at the bottom of the barbed wire appeared to have subsided in two different places.
Lin said the officials suspected that the intruder might have sneaked into the restricted area through one of these two places. He said that the airport set up two layers of security on its north side, including a 2.5m high barbed wire fence as a barrier outside and a 3m high cement wall on the inside. There are also 0.5m high razor wire obstacles on top of these two barriers, he said.
He added that a small passage used by maintenance staff was located between the two barriers, which does not have a door or barrier to restrict access. While the jet bridge has an access control system preventing passengers coming through the terminal from going down to the airport ramp, Lin said that the bridge was not equipped with a similar system that could stop those going up from the ramp to the jet bridge.
Lin said the inspection team also found that the aircraft that the intruder boarded landed at 12:44am and the crew members finished cleaning the cabins and their other procedures at 2:23am.
“The crewmembers were supposed to tell the maintenance operation center to close the cabin door and remove the jet bridge after they were done, but they didn’t,” Lin said. “So the intruder was able to enter the cabin at 3:31am.”
Lin said that the intruder drove a ladder truck used by the ground crew, who left the key in the ignition, adding that this violated airport security regulations.
Many asked why the control tower failed to notice the truck since its radar can detect a moving object on the taxiway.
Air Navigation and Weather Service Deputy Director Chien Yuan-lin (錢元琳) said the motorized vehicles used by the ground crew are equipped with transponders if the vehicles are meant to operate on the taxiways.
“The ladder truck is not supposed to appear on the taxiway, so it does not have a transponder,” Chien said.
Chien said that rather than appearing as a straight line, the lack of transponder made the truck look like an isolated dot on the radar screen, which could easily be overlooked.
In light of the event, Chien said they would inform the TIA whenever they found any unusual signal on the radar screen.
According to Chien, the unauthorized passenger drove on the 1.8km taxiway from 3:25am to 3:29am.
Prior to her arrival, there were two cargo flights using the runway: One departed at 3:14am and the other landed at 3:18am.
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