How did a man go undetected at an airport for 3 months? A security expert weighs

We now know more about Aditya Singh, the 36-year-old Californian man who was discovered last weekend managed to hide for three months in a secure area at O’Hare International Airport. from Chicago. Singh has been charged with felony trespassing in a restricted area of ​​an airport and theft of misdemeanor.

A Cook County district attorney told bond court on Sunday that Singh was afraid of flying because of Covid-19. He had managed to escape airport security for 12 weeks in part because he had found an airport identification badge that allowed him access to areas normally closed to travelers. An O’Hare Airport operations manager had reported that his badge was missing a week after Singh flew from O’Hare.

In the last few days we have learned that Singh holds a BA in Economics from the University of London and an MA from Oklahoma State University. He had lived in the Los Angeles area since 2019. A friend described him as “a gentle soul” who often volunteered to help the homeless. He was on his way to India because his visa was about to expire.

It is still unclear exactly how such a security failure occurred at one of the country’s busiest airports. As the Chicago Times The editorial board asked today: “How does a person live at the airport undetected for almost three months?”

The Chicago Aviation Department, which oversees the city’s airports, has yet to respond to specific detailed questions from reporters, but has issued a statement extolling airport safety, “which is maintained by a coordinated network and at multiple levels of law enforcement. The ministry was investigating the incident, CDA said, but “we were able to determine that this gentleman did not pose a risk to the safety of the airport or the traveling public.”

If that’s true, O’Hare has been very lucky, according to Jeff Price, a 30-year veteran of airport operations and former deputy director of security at Denver International Airport. Now a professor in the Department of Aerospace and Aerospace Sciences at Metropolitan State University in Denver, Price literally wrote the book on aviation safety.

Passengers stranded at airports? It happens, says Price. Many people have mischaracterized this incident with the plot of “The Terminal”, the 2004 film by Tom Hanks based on a real Iranian refugee who was stranded for 18 years at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle airport. because he didn’t have a passport. “The big difference,” Price said, “is that the O’Hare guy was on the safety side.”

“It’s amazing that someone has the means to evade airport security for three months,” Price said. “It wasn’t just that he was passive and they missed him in one way or another. He must have actively evaded them for it to last that long.

Singh allegedly found the airport operations manager’s identification badge, which gave him access to restricted areas where he could potentially have caused enormous damage. “In all likelihood, a badge of this level would allow access to pretty much anywhere in the airport within the apron area, except runways and taxiways,” said Price.

Only a series of human errors could have led to such a violation in the long run. “The manager reported that his badge was missing, and that’s what he was supposed to do,” Price said. What was supposed to happen next was the deactivation of the badge on the computer system so that it could no longer open the doors of the secure areas.

It is not known if this happened. “But even if we assume so,” Price said, “the problem is that a badge always has an expiration date, and until that date has been reached, it is considered visually valid.” For anyone who only took a quick glance at the badge, it would have looked good.

Price speculated that if the badge had been disabled, Singh might have simply worn it around his neck and followed authorized people through the gates into the secure areas. “Unless someone tries to walk through a door, you won’t know whether the badge actually works or not,” Price said. “It is possible that they [at O’Hare airport] relied more on the employee retaining their badge rather than technology. “

“It’s a big violation at an airport to let someone follow you through a door. The protocol is that you’re always supposed to stop them and ask them to prove their badge works in that door, ”Price said. “But it’s a very human process, and although there is a lot of technology on these doors, there’s not much you can do if the employees aren’t careful and doing what they’re supposed to be doing. .

In addition, security patrols are supposed to regularly check people on the ramp “just to make sure their IDs are valid, that they are who they claim to be and that they are where they are. are meant to be, ”Price said. . “The TSA and the airport side have set up random employee checkpoints. But they’re not that hard to avoid.

Finally, the Covid-19 protocols in place at O’Hare Airport could have an impact on safety, Price said. “Identifying people who are out of place is a bigger challenge when employees wear masks,” he said. “When one employee challenges another, you are supposed to look at the badge. But checking this person is harder to do if they are wearing a mask. You would have to have it shot. And until he pulls the mask down, he’s basically anonymous.

Masks also make it more difficult for security personnel to identify non-employees on camera footage and identify suspicious behavior. “It is not unusual at an airport to see other employees standing around and doing nothing, as they often wait for flights to arrive. Airports operate with ebb and flow, ”he said. “Nonetheless, it should definitely make people pay more attention to what’s going on in and around the baggage areas.”

“The problem with Covid is that everyone thinks it’s the only threat we have now,” Price said. “But there are still security issues there.”

Now Mr. Singh is in the hot seat, as is O’Hare. “I think it will be a great analysis for them after the fact to determine exactly how this extraordinary thing happened,” Price said.

The Chicago Aviation Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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