NEW YORK – Drug traffickers are putting passenger planes at risk, and it’s a situation seen earlier this year when federal investigators found loads of cocaine hidden in secure electronic compartments on some planes, key electronic areas to help pilots to control the plane.
It happened on several flights in the New York area, including American Airlines and JetBlue, with pilots operating on planes with passengers unaware that they were sitting in the middle of their checkpoints and wires with drugs.
Inspections revealed that kilos of cocaine were found stuck in the electronic compartments of several passenger flights, right where the plane’s wiring is, according to Frank Russo, chief of customs and border protection for New York airports.
“What we have seen here in the last year alone is more than 30 kilos of cocaine and heroin in the avionics section of the plane,” Russo said.
He said some planes are on the ground because smugglers damage critical cables as they rush to hide bricks of cocaine.
“We know these are people who don’t care about the safety of the passengers they fly,” he said.
Officials say the international flights in question could come from Latin America and the Caribbean. At JFK Airport, Customs uses a specially trained officer, an aircraft mechanic, to conduct drug searches in critical parts of the plane.
National security investigations have said that drug cartels at foreign airports pay workers to bring drugs onto planes. And after landing in the United States, others get paid to retrieve the hidden drugs.
The researchers say that when it comes to the sensitive avionics compartment, only a select few, such as mechanics, have access.
“You obviously don’t want to have anything that can disrupt the flow or operation of an aircraft,” said HSI Special Agent in charge Ricky Patel.
Inspections and investigations are now escalating to stop the cartels, which have reached new heights in their blatant smuggling schemes. HSI said that to investigate these security breaches, a special unit is in place to try to track down foreign or domestic members of the airport who may be corrupt.
“We have a lot of investigations underway that I can’t speak to, but we’ve made some arrests, kidnappings and bans in the past to make sure the planes and our traveling public are as safe as possible,” Patel said.
Experts say an avionics bay secretly filled with illegal drugs could damage important controls.
“You could lose communication radios or flight control computers from autopilot computers,” said Captain John Cox, an aviation expert.
But a fire or a pilot losing full control in the air remains unlikely.
“I would say it could definitely cause a diversion. Because if you start losing multiple systems, you don’t necessarily know the immediate cause. So you have to ground the plane,” Cox said.
JetBlue declined to comment on the recent cases, while an American Airlines spokesperson said its “corporate security team works closely with law enforcement to prevent such activities from occurring at our airline.”
Authorities have said that smuggling into an avionics compartment is rare, certainly compared to other sections of an aircraft. Other common contraband areas include the hold (in baggage or expeditions), as well as on board, hidden in life jackets under the seats or hidden behind panels in other parts of the cabin.
But smugglers compromising the aircraft’s electronic center remain a constant priority.
“We have to dismantle the networks behind these cases for this to stop, it’s not really safe for the traveling public,” Russo said.
