Vandals cause Baldonnel closure

gizmo555

Vandals cause Baldonnel closure


Sunday April 03 2011


One of the runways at the Defences Forces' aerodrome has been shut after it was vandalised.

A 50ft section of a landing strip at Baldonnel was damaged and left with a number of fist size 'pock marks'.

A Defences Forces spokesman said the vandalism was noticed on runway 2911 during morning inspection.

A Casa aircraft had been due to take off and join the search for two missing fishermen off north Dublin but was diverted to the second runway.

"Baldonnel Aerodrome remains fully operational, with all fixed wing flights now using runway 2305," a spokesman said.

Gardai and Military Police are investigating and a full review of security at the aerodrome has been launched.

One line of inquiry is that vandals scaled the perimeter fence and damaged the part of the runway furthest away from Air Corps buildings and hangars.

Engineers are to inspect the runway to assess if it is safe for planes to land, and to decide on repair work.

Press Association

How bizarre . . .

Kensington

Scum.

Steyr

I hope heads role over this, a major breach of security.

Steyr

A theory being said on A&A is Lightning but over a 50ft area and only on the Runway seems a bit too mad.

time lord

A few German Sheppards on patrol with handlers should be on patrol in my humble opinion.

Local-womanizer

Steyr wrote: »

A theory being said on A&A is Lightning but over a 50ft area and only on the Runway seems a bit too mad.

Is there no CCTV covering the runways,or anywhere indeed to see if there was a break-in?

Savage93

gizmo555 wrote: »

Vandals cause Baldonnel closure


Sunday April 03 2011


One of the runways at the Defences Forces' aerodrome has been shut after it was vandalised.

A 50ft section of a landing strip at Baldonnel was damaged and left with a number of fist size 'pock marks'.

A Defences Forces spokesman said the vandalism was noticed on runway 2911 during morning inspection.

A Casa aircraft had been due to take off and join the search for two missing fishermen off north Dublin but was diverted to the second runway.

"Baldonnel Aerodrome remains fully operational, with all fixed wing flights now using runway 2305," a spokesman said.

Gardai and Military Police are investigating and a full review of security at the aerodrome has been launched.

One line of inquiry is that vandals scaled the perimeter fence and damaged the part of the runway furthest away from Air Corps buildings and hangars.

Engineers are to inspect the runway to assess if it is safe for planes to land, and to decide on repair work.

Press Association

How bizarre . . .

WTF, vandals can get onto a "secure" air base which has armed guards and dig lumps of concrete out of a runway with nobody noticing??????????

Morpheus

This is an utter and complete disgrace and smacks of complacency by the military in regards to the aer corps in particular. it actually qualifies as a terrorist attack as foreign military visits are known locally to land there all the time. f**king disgrace that this has been allowed tgo happen. someone has to pay a price for this. and for some reason its not even recognised as a major issue in the national media.

roundymac

Morphéus wrote: »

This is an utter and complete disgrace and smacks of complacency by the military in regards to the aer corps in particular. it actually qualifies as a terrorist attack as foreign military visits are known locally to land there all the time. f**king disgrace that this has been allowed tgo happen. someone has to pay a price for this. and for some reason its not even recognised as a major issue in the national media.

This was done because the Queen is due to land there next month, the republician brethern flexing their whatever it is they flex, shower of ****. I do hope that no-one in the A/C had anything to do with it. The good news is that the damage is pretty monor and the runway is expected to be operational by to-day.

Morpheus

they should never have even gotten CLOSE to the perimeter fence. not going to discuss the security set up but if our military cannot even secure the countries main military aerodrome 24/7 then theres little hope for us.

newby.204

theres a public road running along the perimeter fence for fooks sake!! also security requires investment so instead of whinging about personnel doing the best they can with what they have why dont you whinge about the lack of investment!!

BrianD

newby.204 wrote: »

theres a public road running along the perimeter fence for fooks sake!! also security requires investment so instead of whinging about personnel doing the best they can with what they have why dont you whinge about the lack of investment!!

How hard is it to send 2 guys in a jeep around the perimeter on a regular basis?

Morpheus

how hard is it to hide by the side of the road til the jeep drives by and know you have twenty minutes before it returns. passive patrols like this are no use.
the perimeter needs to be under surveilance either by motion activated cameras, night vision, improvements in illumination or by active footpatrols, armed, dog units, using the mark one eyeball.

roundymac

Mine field would do the trick, secure the base and get rid of scumbags at the same time:D, but I suppose the European court of Human Rights would'nt let us.:cool:

Morpheus

just set up lots of GPMG positions around the base,
provide interlocking arcs of fire,
deploy claymores to the front,
trip flares at the ready ....
brew up and settle back with the NVG's

Manic Moran

ECHR is fine with it, but Ireland went and signed that Ottawa thing.

NTM

delta720

Morphéus wrote: »

passive patrols like this are no use.
the perimeter needs to be under surveilance either by motion activated cameras, night vision, improvements in illumination or by active footpatrols, armed, dog units, using the mark one eyeball.

I'm sure the hangers, equipment and ammunition are under 24/7 guard. What is the point in using massive resources to protect a few grass areas and a couple of concrete strips.

If we did have that amount of resources used then you'd be giving out about young soldiers being wasted walking around a place nobody would ever want to attack.

If anything Dublin airport should be your first concern regarding parameter security as it would be a much more likely target for any significant attack. The Air Corps have since said that the damage was mainly superficial.

Panda General

Some people have nothing better to do.

SamuelFox

Any “Air Force” that doesn’t secure its runways is beyond a joke. Whatever the cause of this was – vandalism or weather or whatever, the fact that the DF can’t stand over its perimeter security is amazing.

theres also security requires investment so instead of whinging about personnel doing the best they can with what they have why dont you whinge about the lack of investment!!

Don’t start this under-investment nonsense. The DF have had cash thrown at them for the last 20 years. The spending priorities are set by military personnel, and since there was plenty of money for new messes around the country and toys for the boys, there was no excuse for not upgrading perimeter security. Its so basic its beyond belief that we have to even discuss it.

What is the point in using massive resources to protect a few grass areas and a couple of concrete strips.

Those concrete strips play a pretty important role in the life of the air corps, but I see your point, maybe protecting them would be an over-reaction. I mean, we spend millions and millions on the Air Corps and a few vandals just have to step off the road to prevent any planes flying. As you say yourself the important stuff is under 24/7 guard, but I bet you'd have said the whole place is under guard until this happened.

omg a kitty

Does Baldonnell not have watchtowers? no? Like is this supposed to be the so called "main airbase" of the Irish Air Corps? Like Brian said, at least a few patrols???

davetherave

BrianD wrote: »

How hard is it to send 2 guys in a jeep around the perimeter on a regular basis?

omg a kitty wrote: »

Does Baldonnell not have watchtowers? no? Like is this supposed to be the so called "main airbase" of the Irish Air Corps? Like Brian said, at least a few patrols???

You assume patrols don't get sent out? How long to do think it would take to cover a 5 and a half mile circuit? It would appear that at the shortest point, there is 150 metres of open ground between the perimeter fence and one of the runways. Tell me how many patrols you would need to cover all of the ground all of the time and where you suggest the manpower would come from?

Regardless of whether it was lightning strikes or subversives I'd say the guard commander, BOS and orderly officer will be filling out quite a bit of paperwork this week.

I do like morph's plan though :pac:

Poccington

BrianD wrote: »

How hard is it to send 2 guys in a jeep around the perimeter on a regular basis?

Perimeter patrols are already done.

Morphéus wrote: »

how hard is it to hide by the side of the road til the jeep drives by and know you have twenty minutes before it returns. passive patrols like this are no use.
the perimeter needs to be under surveilance either by motion activated cameras, night vision, improvements in illumination or by active footpatrols, armed, dog units, using the mark one eyeball.

That's a fantastic concept, however, keeping in mind that the perimeter of the Don is nearly 10k right around... Where shall all the money or bodies be pulled from?

Of course, we could make the Dublin units supply a Coy on rotation to the Don and make them set up patrol harbours around the runway and make them send out fighting patrols every night.

SamuelFox wrote: »

Those concrete strips play a pretty important role in the life of the air corps, but I see your point, maybe protecting them would be an over-reaction. I mean, we spend millions and millions on the Air Corps and a few vandals just have to step off the road to prevent any planes flying. As you say yourself the important stuff is under 24/7 guard, but I bet you'd have said the whole place is under guard until this happened.

I think that's a major point there. Whoever decided to either have a public road running so close to what is a fairly poor perimeter fence or too push the perimeter out that close to a public road, is an absolute retard.

Having seen the perimeter fencing around the Don, something needs to be done. The Blufftwaffe need to remember that they still need to play by Army rules, which include securing your perimeter and holding constant security reviews to see what can be improved on.

punchdrunk

a decent fence,motion detection sensors and this wouldn't be an Issue
if a poxy garden centre can afford monitored IP cameras,then Baldonnel can!

simple fact is our military is incredibly underfunded,but Joe public are completely ignorant of this fact,they cry foul when any money is spent on defense but react in shock horror when something like this happens!

shell out or shut up!

goldie fish

punchdrunk wrote: »

a decent fence,motion detection sensors and this wouldn't be an Issue
if a poxy garden centre can afford monitored IP cameras,then Baldonnel can!

simple fact is our military is incredibly underfunded,but Joe public are completely ignorant of this fact,they cry foul when any money is spent on defense but react in shock horror when something like this happens!

shell out or shut up!

They blew their budget on the VIP reception centre.

punchdrunk

goldie fish wrote: »

They blew their budget on the VIP reception centre.

trying to be all things to all men,built to keep the Fianna Fail paymasters happy
but in fairness I believe we need a building such as this

Absurdum

my reply to this topic in the A&A board:

The stories in the media are utter horse****, pardon my French.

I find it hard to believe that a "Defence Forces spokesperson" was able to confirm the vandal story within a couple of hours of the damage being discovered. It is simply not plausible that they would have (a) come to that conclusion so quickly, it was a Sunday morning, an investigation simply could not have been arranged, carried out and concluded in that time frame and (b) made public. All within a couple of hours.

It's also extremely odd that the story surfaced so quickly...it seems that there is never a shortage of journalists on hand to concoct all kinds of bizarre tales about Defence Forces-related matters. Of course, they don't/won't bother following up on these stories to report what actually did happen, that would require a little bit of research and perhaps some humble pie.

http://www.lakepowellchronicle.com/v...&story_id=2441

The multiple lightning strikes created about 40 holes across the runway, with some as large as one-and-a-half inches to seven inches wide.

hmm, that sounds familiar....

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/gsp/localdat...Lightning.html

The storm also had nearly continuous cloud-to-ground
lightning. In addition to the several trees which were struck at the
GSP airport, the main runway was also hit. Lightning blasted an 18 inch
diameter hole in the runway, temporarily closing the airport.

http://kini.my/tags/lightning-damage...airport-runway

There are more examples around, it is rare and unusual, but it happens.

Now, are we gonna jump on the bandwagon and somehow lump it in with bank regulation failure, dodgy politicians, the M50, etc. because someone somewhere decided that this could only be an attack on the British Royal family, or will we look at it in a rational and logical manner?

BrianD

@absurdum

Something has clearly happened here. It's not journalists making up this story. They may put a spin on it but there has to be some line that came from Baldonnell to start from it. So either:

a) DF have acknowledged that damage occurred and want to report it before someone else claims it and they are caught on the backfoot.

b) The people who have done the damage have leaked it to the media.

or

c) Some member of the DF who doesn't know better, though or heard it was vandalism and rang the papers.

Weather damage? Perhaps. Lightning damage? I doubt it. We just don't get the kind of electrical activity that would be common in other countries.

Something is afoot here.

Would a bit of night vision monitoring of the runway not sort out this problem? Is the Baldonnell tower occupied 24/7?

punchdrunk

if this is due to the weather then somebody in the press office needs to be shot with balls of his own ****é
it's absurd that the DF has been called into question if it turns out that this was a freak weather event

Morpheus

it has raised ONE issue though.

the DF have admitted it COULD be vandalism , because they know that
A. the perimeter fence is in a bad state and
B. they dont have 24hr surveillance coverage of the runways to prove otherwise.

it may BE freak weather but now they have to consider, with the high profile visitors expected to arrive over the coming months that the security will have to be beefed up.

a couple of motion sensor cameras wouldnt go astray, if you want to cut corners then realistically all you need to monitor 24hrs is the runway area, not the entire land around it to the perimiter fence, seeing as this is currently patrolled in some fashion.

Granted it would be a bit expensive, have to be tendered out etc but its probably one of the considerations that they are thinking about. A dog handling unit should be part of the setup but thats just my opinion. There are cost benefits to using some of the above.

I hope they at least repair / replace the perimeter fence with something a bit more intimidating.

roundymac

Morphéus wrote: »

just set up lots of GPMG positions around the base,
provide interlocking arcs of fire,
deploy claymores to the front,
trip flares at the ready ....
brew up and settle back with the NVG's

I suppose that would interfere with their HUMAN RIGHTS:mad:

Absurdum

BrianD wrote: »

@absurdum

Something has clearly happened here. It's not journalists making up this story. They may put a spin on it but there has to be some line that came from Baldonnell to start from it. So either:

a) DF have acknowledged that damage occurred and want to report it before someone else claims it and they are caught on the backfoot.


b) The people who have done the damage have leaked it to the media.

if someone had done it, they surely would be all over the internet claiming it eg "we stopped rendition flights" or some other BS like that

(c) Some member of the DF who doesn't know better, though or heard it was vandalism and rang the papers.

probably, but like I said there is no way the DF would have even commented on it so quickly

Weather damage? Perhaps. Lightning damage? I doubt it. We just don't get the kind of electrical activity that would be common in other countries.

there was a thunderstorm in the very area on Saturday evening!