PARIS—Explosives in the form of paper, or concealed in a medicine-sized bottle and looking like salt. Tiny electric detonators. Security agents at the main airport in Paris are trained to detect all manner of increasingly sophisticated devices that could doom a flight.
But the chilling reality is that security is ultimately fallible.
“The infinitely perfect does not exist,” said Sylvain Prevost, who trains airport personnel seeking the coveted red badge that allows them access to the airport’s restricted areas.
That is especially true when 85,000 people at Charles de Gaulle airport hold red badges, which are good for three years, and many of them work for a host of private companies. Add to the mix, concern over religious extremism in an age of increasing mind-altering radicalization that can transform people within months.
Airport authorities in France and elsewhere are painfully aware of the risks, but hesitant to speculate as to whether an airport security lapse could have contributed to Thursday’s crash of EgyptAir Flight 804. The Airbus A320 took off from Charles de Gaulle with 66 people on board before lurching wildly to the left and right, spinning around and crashing into the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The cause of the crash remains unclear.
