Student shows airline security is not top flight
A North Carolina college student has commanded headlines recently for exposing shortcomings in airline security.
While the matter is currently under investigation by the FBI, the impetus should be in making air travel as safe as possible. The college student, 20-year-old Nathaniel Heatwole, should be punished, but federal officials should be more concerned with correcting the larger picture – and that’s the safety of Americans who chose to fly on commercial airlines.
One argument is that Heatwole should be severely punished – no matter his intentions. He broke the law and deserves to be treated like a criminal.
The other train of thought is Heatwole has done this country a great service. By sneaking items aboard an airplane such as box cutters, bleach, matches and modeling clay made to look like explosives, Heatwole showed just how easy it is to slip past so-called tight security checkpoints.
The overwhelming question is if a college student can accomplish this with ease, how hard will it be for a diabolical terrorist group to do exactly the same thing? This would be a terrorist group with entirely different intentions than Nathaniel Heatwole.
We can’t lose sight of the fact Heatwole spelled out his plan beforehand. He warned the FBI via e-mail that he wanted to expose commercial airline security lapses. He then did exactly that by taking illegal items aboard two Southwest Airlines planes.
Granted, Heatwole should not be allowed to walk away with simply a slap on the wrist. The case has become so high-profile, it would only encourage more people to try their hand at beating the system if the punishment wasn’t a significant deterrent.
But the main problem is that airline officials still must answer the question of how this young man accomplished what he did. It’s an embarrassment and it should be a significant concern for anyone who opts to travel by commercial airline, whether that person flies from North Carolina or from Nashville.
In an endorsement of the job Nashville International Airport officials are doing, they have shown they take security seriously. Anyone who has flown out of that airport recently knows security officials there have no problem rifling through your luggage and other personal items. It’s intrusive, it’s an inconvenience, and it’s plain annoying. But it’s also a necessary evil with the threat of another terrorist attack always looming on the horizon.
Nathaniel Heatwole has grabbed the spotlight, but this case has much bigger ramifications than one college student trying to prove a point. For commercial air travelers from Warren County to Wyoming, we want to feel safe when we board an airplane.
With a person such as Heatwole easily bypassing security with potentially deadly items, that feeling of safety is difficult to grasp.