The documents are armored. Inaccessible. Locked in the secret of the safes of the top management. In the flying enclave of Santa Gilla the delivery is that of absolute silence. Not even drafts on the intercontinental airport of Cagliari-Elmas. The dossier is one of the explosive ones, in every sense. The cards are from cyber security. State intelligence has its eyes on every possible target. Airports, from 8.46 am on 11 September 2001, are much more than a target for terrorists and criminals. World history has changed since the first Boeing 767, which departed from Boston International Airport and headed for Los Angeles, was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
The New York Lesson
The New York massacre, with four planes hijacked and detonated on as many targets, cost the lives of 2,977 people (plus 19 hijackers) and injured over 6,000. From that moment there has been no more peace for airports around the world. Safety regulations have become a universal obsession. The planetary norms to prevent any possible terrorist snare have become the anguish of Criminalpool and the FBI, CIA and KGB. In Europe, the Community directives for safety have become mandatory orders. The provisions are among the strictest ever and the premise of the mission of ENAC, the National Agency for Civil Aviation, is peremptory.
Maximum alert
The incipit is a maximum alert: "The events of 11 September 2001 have shown that air attacks can threaten any nation and not only the geographical areas involved in situations of evident criticality". If this is the premise, the consequence is compelling: "It was so necessary - writes ENAC in the national security plan - to open a new chapter, guaranteeing very strict prevention and control measures, structured on international standards and combined with an activity continuous monitoring of the entire organization of air transport: that is, on infrastructures, managers, airlines, flight schools, as well as on passengers, baggage, goods, aircraft ». Not a joke. The directives that depart from Brussels are a dogma for the body that the President of the Council of Ministers has delegated to the security of Italian airports. In Italy, more than anywhere else, the secret services know that you must never let your guard down and that nothing can be overlooked. It is August 2nd of this year. The tourist season marks an optimistic forecast for Sardinia. After the first waves of Covid, the island reopens its doors. No less than ten state officials landed at Cagliari airport from a flight from Rome. Anonymous and in plain clothes, like ordinary tourists. The mission, however, is not at Poetto. Without any warning, with a surprise blitz, as required by the rules, the Central Inspection Unit of ENAC arrived in Cagliari.
Flight FBI
A sort of FBI of flight, a silent and reserved organization, with the task of putting the heart of airport security under the observation lens. The delegation is composite: there are ENAC officials and State Police inspectors. Sogaer's Security Manager, the security officer, is in the dark. The inspectors of the Central Nucleus move like normal passengers in an airport attacked by tourists in and out. They watch, observe, note procedures and operation of the airport security machine. In four days, from 2 to 6 August 2021, everything and more happens. Inspection is not a routine operation. Testing an airport in terms of the protection of passengers and staff, flights and the structure itself is not a detail. The report we are in possession of, of which we publish large photographic excerpts, is, from every point of view, explosive. The headed paper is that of ENAC, the dossier is explicit in the objective: "Reliefs Chapter one - Airport security". Under examination is none other than the intercontinental airport of Cagliari-Elmas.
Secret document
The document, which was to remain secret in the private rooms of the airport managers, is a disconcerting x-ray of the conditions in which the inspectors find the security of the Cagliari airport. The operation is conducted with scientific precision. Technically they are called "cover tests", or the transit of simulated devices through the safety equipment. The objective is to verify the degree of reaction of the apparatus starting from the machines dedicated to X-ray control to the departures of passengers and their hand luggage. At issue is not the professionalism of the many experienced workers at the airport, but rather the management of the system and above all the operation of the technological safety equipment.
The collapse
It is here, in fact, that the collapse occurs. The Chapter is the 4.1 of the findings of the Central Control Nucleus. The classification is very strict: "Non-compliant with serious shortcomings". The check is the bloodiest: the passage to control with prohibited objects and in this case with IED (Improvised explosive device, ed), improvised explosive devices. It is late evening on the first day of the inspections in the accesses of departures area of the Cagliari airport. We report in full the temporal scan reported in the confidential document: "On the evening of August 2, 6 cover tests took place, two of which with negative results". In practice, out of 6 improvised devices or prohibited objects, two pass quietly. The collapse of the controls, however, is postponed to a few days later when the inspectors of the central nucleus of Enac and the State Police want to see clearly about the operation that has let through a third of the explosive material used in the security check.
That August 5th
It is August 5th, the tourist season in Sardinia is at its peak. The inspectors wrote: "15 cover tests were carried out, of which only one gave a positive result". In practice, on fifteen improvised explosive devices and prohibited weapons, the controls manage to stop just one. It is clear proof of the gravity of the situation. The inspectors, even before the final report, at the conclusion of the inspection, give immediate instructions to eliminate within five days from the communication the most serious deficiencies recorded in the X-ray control systems at departures. It is a short step from inside to outside the airport. The vulnerability of the sensitive area of the airport is examined by the inspectors. In practice, the entire airport grounds must be armored with an alert system and functional controls to prevent any illegal access to the runway area or to the aircraft parking lots. When the inspectors enter the Control Room it is 4.10 pm on August 4, 2021. The control room attendant is forced to tell everything. He starts from the positive news: «The protection of the head 32 side is ensured by an anti-intrusion radar system which is fully functional». In practice, only one narrow side of the airport, the one at sea towards Cagliari, the warhead, is manned by a radar. It doesn't take long to understand, though, that those plainclothes gentlemen with ID cards in hand want to know what's wrong.
The confession
The admission is disarming: "The anti-intrusion system of the remaining perimeter has been inoperative for technical problems for about 5/6 months". In practice, more than two thirds of the airport perimeter results at the time of the security inspection without any type of functioning anti-intrusion device. There is, however, worse. They write in the report: "The perimeter video surveillance system consisting of 131 non-infrared cameras (ie they do not work at night) is lacking for the western part with 65 of them not working". What is more serious is that the day before, on 3 August at 11.25, during a check of a perimeter circuit, the person in charge of the surveillance and patrolling service reported to the inspectors "that the anti-intrusion system and the of video surveillance was fully functional ».
The broken alarm
At 16.37 on 4 August, an access test on the alarmed door n.48 is triggered, which promptly alarmed. Seven minutes later, at 4.44 pm, airport security intervened. Too bad that the agent informed the inspectors that he had heard of the alert from third parties "reporting that no alarm had been triggered in the control room." It's not over. If on the west side there are 65 cameras that were out of order, on the opposite side, the east one "it was not possible to quantify those that worked".
The patrol movie
The report concludes with a reminder, if we want paradoxical, movie stuff: "The surveillance and patrolling procedure does not follow an unpredictable model as per procedure". In practice, a patrol that "suggests" when to violate the airport. All written, black and white, on a report that was to remain secret in the rooms of those who had the task of keeping the most delicate of Sardinia's infrastructures safe. In Sogaer's procurement system there are two tenders, one in 2019 and one in 2020, which can be traced back to the security systems.
Procurement security
In 2019 a tender for the supply, installation and maintenance of standard X-ray equipment 3 at the airports of Cagliari and Olbia, allocation of 6 million 200 thousand euros. Not even a year later, in 2020, a new contract for the executive design and execution of the revamping works of the tape lines subservient to standard X-ray control 3. A further 4 million 410 thousand euros planned expenditure. An avalanche of security money. Too bad that on 5 August, in the second year of the Covid era, 14 out of 15 fake passengers crossed the off-limits area with improvised explosive devices and prohibited weapons. To date it is not known how many of these very serious deficiencies have been remedied. Certainly all this had to remain armored in the chronic silence of Santa Gilla.
(4.continue)