A Morphological Approach for Proactive Risk Management in Civil Aviation Security

In this study, morphological analysis is used to develop a framework for proactively assessing the risk of a terrorist attack on the air transportation system. Morphological analysis, a first order method pioneered by Fritz Zwicky, is employed to exhaustively create possible attack scenarios. Morphological analysis is then used to assess the likelihood of each scenario. Given a consequence estimation method, the risk for each of these scenarios can be determined. A method for developing profiles of various terror organizations is outlined and, given this information, a more specific assessment of high-risk scenarios can be made. Using the method developed herein, defensive organizations would have the capability to quickly assess how risky various terrorist attack scenarios are, and therefore more effectively protect our air transportation systems from those who would attack it for their own political or ideological gain.