Four members of the Futuro Vegetal collective sneaked into Ibiza airport on Friday and vandalized a private German reactor. Activists entered with cameras, fire extinguishers loaded with paint and a strong sticker. They accessed the flight field apparently by jumping the fence that separates the runways from nurseries and a crop field. They then ran to one of the small jets that were staying overnight and sprayed it with black and yellow paint, rendering it inoperable. At the same time, they photographed and recorded videos of the protest action to warn about the climate crisis, and then attached their hands to the ship.
Within minutes, everything that had happened was posted on social media. Photos and video spread with the virality of any out-of-the-ordinary action that is shared on Twitter, TikTok or Instagram and then repeated on digital media. The action, which ended after a few minutes with the appearance of the Civil Guard, has shown that breaking into the so-called “air side” of an airport, the most sensitive, is feasible, although it is not it is something intrinsic to this airport, as there have also recently been similar cases at Geneva and Amsterdam airports.
It is noteworthy that such an action could happen in one of the tourist airports with the most traffic in Spain. It may come as a surprise that it is July 14, in the middle of the summer peak season, and when an average of 45,000 passengers pass through the terminal every day. All airport users traveling through the terminal for commercial or private flights undergo, without exception, thorough security checks before boarding. Similarly, employees and crew entering the area that includes both the boarding area and the aircraft parking platform must also pass through security screens each time they go to the workplace.
The contrast between who can vandalize an aircraft or airport facilities and the thoroughness that applies to airport users and workers is remarkable. Security is the argument that justifies a complete inspection of each person when they enter the boarding area: from the random check for traces of explosives to the separation of electronic devices. From taking off your shoes so that shoes or sports that minimally cover the ankle go through X-rays to having to carry hygiene products in transparent bags or from the limit of liquids with which you can access a terminal to taking off your belt. These and many more are rules that have been with us at the terminals for more than two decades.
The island’s Civil Guard took charge of the case at dawn on Friday. According to Air Safety Law 21/203, it represents an infringement against the safety of civil aviation and could be classified as serious or very serious, with an administrative penalty of between 45,001 and 225,000 euros.
The September 2001 attacks in New York, in which two planes were used to crash into the Twin Towers, raised the stakes for airport security to record highs. Two months after 9/11, the United States created the TSA, or Transportation Security Administration, a security giant that employs nearly 48,000 people. The majority of countries have imitated the increase in the control of airport facilities, despite the fact that the excess is increasingly qualified as part of the so-called theater of security, a concept coined precisely by two Americans: Bruce Schneier and Edward Felten.
The first, for years a computer scientist, physicist and former employee of the United States Department of Defense, explains in conferences and books that it is an expensive and theatrical activity. He has always defended that the measures taken before 9/11 were sufficient and that the subsequent ones have not increased security, but have created a sense of security. According to Schneier, the enormous efforts and budget that are invested in security measures should be directed towards intelligence, research and other emergency measures.
