LAUSR

Abstract This paper presents an entirely new perspective to explain aviation security failure. Aviation security failure is conceptualised by analysing the official report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The National Commission report is an authoritative and data-rich account of aviation security failure that, hitherto has never been made available for scientific research. The results introduce new concepts such as erroneous perception, system cognition and desensitisation, and the data are used to propose a new systems failure model for aviation security. The paper concludes by suggesting aviation security, by its unique construction, can be predisposed to failure.