Heist sparks airport security review
March 20, 2002
A second multimillion heist at Heathrow Airport has forced ministers to order another review of security.
Robbers stole £2.25m ($3.2m) yesterday morning in the second security van heist at the west London airport in five weeks.
The money arrived in the UK on a South African Airlines flight from Johannesburg and was being transferred to a security van when it was hijacked by two at 7.30am.
The raid has raised questions about security in restricted areas ‘airside’, supposedly improved after September 11.
A spokesman for the Department of Transport, which sets the standards that airports have to meet on aviation security, said ministers had demanded to hear from airport operator BAA over the latest raid.
Transport Secretary Stephen Byers and Home Secretary David Blunkett had already requested an ‘urgent report’ after the February 11 raid.
Van abandoned
The latest raid also involved a security breach as two Asian men in their twenties forced the 21-year-old driver to drive out of Heathrow at knifepoint to nearby Cranford.
The money was transferred to another vehicle before the hijackers made off, abandoning the van in Church Road, Cranford.
The driver was unhurt, although he could not describe the getaway vehicle or the direction in which the men left.
On February 11 thieves made off with £4.6m in foreign cash at Terminal Four after raiding a British Airways (BA) security van in a secure zone ‘airside’.
Police believe that raid, in which two robbers were armed only with plastic wrist ties, may have been an inside job.
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