| And while we can marvel at the wits and the proficiency of the pilot and the air traffic controllers - the truth is they were in a life and death situation - with the lives of 15innocent people on the line - indeed a situation which, everyone hopes is never repeated.
So now, the business of transforming Belize's very lax air safety regime falls. to the Belize Airport Authority - which was not present today - and the Civil Aviation Authority.
Director Nigel Carter says the work has started:
Nigel Carter, Director of Civil Aviation
"As of last Friday, we have conducted a full sweep of all aerodromes that provide services to commercial air transport of scheduled operations. We have done a full sweep of those with the with regional partners with the intent of identifying the best possible and most efficient way of implementing these security measures."
"We have clearly defined prohibited items, so items that can't go on board an aircraft, and the intent is for us to have a public awareness campaign to ensure that the general public is aware of what the cannon cannot take on board an aircraft."
"So firearms can't go on board an aircraft, you must declare it, and steps are taken to ensure that that aircraft is not necessarily in the cabin. Something as simple as a lighter is not permitted on board an aircraft, and we have to have the general public well aware of this, so as not to create more confusion or havoc at the domestic aerodromes, and people want to check in and say, well, I want to take my lighter, why are you taking away my lighter from me? So we believe that there has to be a public awareness campaign to ensure that the general public is aware of the protocols. We'll continue to urge passengers to try to come in ahead of time before the flights."
"We recommend an hour, but again that is something that we continue to work with the airlines to ensure. We're going to improve on incident reporting, so any incidents of unruly passengers, we're going to require that this be reported, because obviously we have to be more proactive as opposed to reactive, and obviously with having more data we'll be able to carry out any analysis and ensure that we can be proactive about the security measures that we'll continue to improve as we go along."
"As it pertains to passenger screening, there'll be use of handheld metal detectors as well as walkthrough metal detectors, and all hand baggage will be checked for any prohibited items."
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