The John Wayne Airport: Guilty or Innocent?

On September 11, 2001, 2096 people died because our nation’s airport security failed. I reflect back where America’s airports security was and I try to visualize where our nation’s airports security levels will be on future anniversaries of this infamous day. In particular, I ask the question if my local airport, the Orange County California John Wayne Airport (SNA), has the best security the airport civilian administration can provide to prevent our airport from being used in another 9/11. After all I and the other 3.2 million citizens of Orange County are de facto owners of the John Wayne Airport which is a County owned airport that belongs to the people of Orange County California. We rely on SNA to provide the best security possible at the airport where we and our loved ones fly from.

 I retired in 2010 from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department where I served the last six years of my career as a law enforcement airport watch commander and training supervisor at SNA. Eleven years later I ask the question; is SNA security better, status quo, or has it weakened over the 11 years since I left? Are terrorists, homegrown violent extremists or other dangers posing a threat to SNA’s perimeter fence or terminal curbside today?

I saw first-hand the weakness of SNA security during my tenure there. My department tried to enhance the security of my airport and was successful in a few endeavors, but many security improvement requests were submitted and declined by the airport administration. 

What I present now as evidence against SNA during and after my tenure reveals the security failures that will leave one to conclude it may well be an inherent risk to fly into and out of SNA. Based on the facts I present, I will ask you to be the jury and judge in a trial charging SNA with a failure to make the airport a safe environment for the 10.7 million plus people who frequent it each year.

In 2002, The Orange County, California Grand Jury reviewed the John Wayne Airport security operations where it specifically addressed its airport fence security after 9/11. Included in these recommendations, were military style force protection components. The Grand Jury made the following recommendations for immediate implementation:

• Inspect the fence and have trees that are too close removed and ensure that there are no gaps between the fence and the ground.
• Place K-rail (cement rail vehicle barriers similar to the ones that separate freeway lanes dividing opposing traffic) at locations conducive to penetration by ramming vehicles.
• Close all private Fixed Based Operators (FBO) gates that may allow penetration of the airfield by ramming vehicles.
• At gates that remain in use, place K-rail in a configuration that will ensure vehicles must proceed slowly (to the entrance gate of the airfield to prohibit gaining enough speed to ram through the entrance gate).

The following recommendations for long-term implementation were:

• Study the feasibility of installing an alarm wire along the full length of the fence and a motion detection system at specific locations inside the perimeter fence.
• Install a second perimeter fence (or replace as needed) to form a “clear zone” around the airfield.
• Re-install existing perimeter fence (or replace as needed) on a low concrete base to prevent penetration by vehicle and erosion.
• Install articulating, hydraulic type barriers at ACS (Access Control Systems) enabled gates.

19-years after this report practically none of the Grand Jury recommendations were implemented at SNA. My airfield perimeter has 2.9 miles of fence line that is immersed in 7 foot tall dense shrubbery. Any person can stand in the bushes unseen only 57 yards from waiting passenger jets staging for takeoff. While assigned there, I wanted my airfield patrol deputies and officers to be able to see any threats with enough standoff time to react to an airfield perimeter threat. I went to the property owners surrounding SNA and received their approval to remove the existing shrubbery. I took their approval to SNA administration who promptly told me no, they would not spend the money to have the shrubbery removed. There were other attempts to strengthen the security at my airport, some of which were;

1. A proposal for SNA to use existing concertina wire procured from the U.S. Military at no cost on the current perimeter fence where only three strands of barb wire currently were installed. The SNA administration said no, they did not want the airport to look like a fort.
2. My Joint Terrorism Task Force Investigator worked with me to present a License Plate Reader Camera system for SNA at no cost through a DHS grant. After a meeting with SNA administration where a preview of the system was reviewed and revealed its ability to alert airport security to Homeland Security watch list suspects, wanted criminals, stolen vehicles, and Amber Alerts (Abductions), the administration said no, maybe later? A year later I learned the SNA administration said they would not install the system because they did not want big brother at their airport.  
3. I wrote a terrorist business watch curriculum to educate various airport and surrounding business employees concerning what to watch for, how to report and act when seeing suspicious people and circumstances in and around SNA. SNA said the curriculum would scare and alarm people and said no. I implemented the program to non-airport employee groups without their permission, but was restricted from the civilian SNA employees.
4. SNA to save cost eliminated Sheriff’s aviation security trained and armed special officers and replaced them at key security points with a private security company personnel who had never worked at an airport before.  

After my request for concertina wire and perimeter fence shrubbery clearance was denied, the following security breaches occurred at SNA;

• A man climbed over the SNA fence near the airport’s four fuel tanks and ran across the runway, stopping a taxiing 737 passenger aircraft. Subject was arrested 15 minutes later in the middle of the airfield.
• A woman drove her 2007 Toyota 4-door sedan through a closed airfield perimeter gate. Drove onto the airfield past rows of private aircraft and across the main runway at SNA. Subject was arrested as she was about to drive onto the commercial aircraft ramp.
• An intoxicated man climbed SNA airfield fence at midnight, crossed over the runways and walked up the stairs of a commercial aircraft loading Jetway. The door to the Jetway was unlocked and the subject walked into the secured side of the terminal where custodians notified the airport police.
• A man dug a hole under the SNA perimeter fence and crawled under to take a shortcut across the airfield and was arrested when he walked up to an officer asking directions.
• SNA maintenance workers found a 3-foot cut section of SNA chain link perimeter fence cute where someone used the opening to trespass onto the airfield roadway. No suspect was caught.
• A 22-year old man climbed over the SNA perimeter fence onto the runway. Subject climbed back over off the airport property and was arrested.
• A man climbed the SNA fence, stole a ramp vehicle, and drove it across the airfield. The man then accessed employee work overalls, puts them on and went into the secure side of the terminal and hid in the false ceiling until arrested.

There are many other security failures and issues that will be in my upcoming book on SNA that tells you the facts then and now in a comparison of its improved or weaken airport security during the last-10 years. I feel the simple evidence I have presented just in this document is sufficient, much less the damning evidence to come, to find SNA guilty of the failure to provide the best security for SNA employees and the passengers who uses the John Wayne Airport.

On today’s 20th anniversary of 9/11, our world is in great turmoil, far greater than September 2001. The April 9, 2021 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community states; “ISIS, al-Qaida, and Iran and its militant allies continue to plot terrorist attacks against US persons and interests, including to varying degrees in the United States.”

A few months after this report, the US leaves Afghanistan and the Taliban, a designated terrorist group, is now a de facto government of Afghanistan. The de facto government chose Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the terrorist Haqqani network, who also has a $10 million dollar reward from the FBI for his arrest, to be the Interior Minister for Afghanistan. A nation-state for the first time encompasses al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Haqqani group under the leadership of the Taliban. Thoughts where this may go?

As a former law enforcement watch commander and training supervisor at the John Wayne Airport I leave no quarter in my determination to improve the security at my airport where my grandson’s and daughters fly frequently to and fro.

After studying 21-Airports Police Agencies across the country, I know my airports weakness is systemic with all of America’s airports. I ask you, the present and former security personnel at airports across the nation, what will you do to improve the security of your airport? Will you not rock the boat in your current capacity of an airport policeman or as a retired airport law enforcement official? Or will you sit comfortably in your office or enjoy your retirement? I ask you, will you find some proper measure to prompt your airport to improve its security? If not you then who? If not now than when?