The alleged attempt to bring down Daallo Airlines Flight 159 on 2 February 2016 was the latest in a long line of politically-motivated terrorist attacks on the aviation industry. Smart Security and TOPSIS could be employed to enhance aviation security.

The alleged attempt to bring down the Somali-owned Daallo Airlines Flight 159 flying out of Mogadishu on 2 February 2016 was the latest in a long line of politically motivated terrorist attacks on the aviation industry. Preliminary investigations named al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate, as the primary suspect in the incident, and traces of TNT were detected around the blast area. There was significant damage to the plane – a gaping hole in the fuselage – but the pilots successfully returned the stricken plane to its airport of origin, Mogadishu, with the only loss of life that of the suicide bomber.

In October 2015, Metrojet Flight 9268 was en route to Moscow from Sharm el-Sheikh when it was allegedly brought down by an improvised explosive device. Intelligence reports from Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States suggest that the bombing of the Metrojet was carried out by the self-styled Islamic State (IS). Although the view of terrorism being the cause of the crash has been disputed by Egyptian investigators, no other plausible causes have been surfaced as to why Metrojet 9268 crashed abruptly in good weather.

… Eugene EG Tan is an Associate Research Fellow and Damien D. Cheong is a Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.