All of this TSA stuff on the news is getting a little crazy…it almost seems like the media is looking for passengers who are looking for attention.

But once again the lessons learned are clear…at least if we all agree on the primary goal.

Hopefully everyone agrees that our main goal is safety and national security, because I don’t know about you, but when I am flying through the clouds at 35,000 feet I do not want the plane to blow up.

So if we are all in agreement, then it comes down to human beings – pilots, passengers and security personnel – having situational awareness and accountability.

Pilots – We need to trust that the airline has tested the pilots to ensure they have situational awareness on how to fly the plane safely and deliver passengers from point A to point B.  We also need to trust the airline’s pilots are accountable and they are not terrorists.

Passengers – We need passengers with situational awareness and accountability to understand that national security and airline security requires all passengers to be cleared as a safe passenger.  No matter what religion, what clothes, what sex, what nationality or what other excuses a passenger comes up with, all passengers need to understand and be held accountable for airline safety and security rules…period.  If a passenger does not like the rules they have the option to take a car, take a bus, take a train, take a ship or take a hike.

Security Personnel – We need security personnel and management of security personnel to be prepared with situational awareness and accountability.  Simply put, if passengers trusted that TSA management and TSA personnel were not going to put our naked pictures online, then passengers would go through the x-ray scanner and be on their way.  Unfortunately many passengers do not trust TSA management or TSA personnel.  Why…because TSA management and TSA personnel have repeatedly revealed their lack of situational awareness and lack of accountability to those of us who spend much time in airports.  This disconnect could very easily addressed and eliminated if TSA management was serious about ensuring ongoing preparedness, situational awareness and accountability at the individual level.

For those passengers who fail the x-ray scanner test, passengers and security personnel need situational awareness and accountability so the suspicious scan test can be addressed with additional questioning or with a body pat down or to take the suspicious passenger or terrorist off the flight.

Lessons learned are right in front of our eyes, but will TSA management, TSA personnel and passengers learn?