It is Jamaica's good fortune that Sunday night's attempted aircraft hijacking at Montego Bay's Sangster International Airport ended relatively peacefully without injury or death to any of the nearly 160 Canadians who were held aboard the CanJet aeroplane.

Any outcome to the contrary would have been devastating to Jamaica - but worse in these cruel economic times when the island's important tourism trade is already under stress from the global recession. Canada, from where visitors to Jamaica has risen sharply in recent years, now provides a quarter of the tourists to the island and as such is a key market. It is cruel irony, therefore, that the incident happened at the same time that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived in Jamaica for an official visit, with a good chunk of his country's press in tow.

In so far as anything positive can be scraped from such incidents, it is perhaps fortuitous that the attempted hijacking was the work of a seemingly emotionally and psychologically troubled young man, rather than the ideologically driven action of a hard-core terrorist.

Not unreasonable

And notwithstanding the apparently professionalism with which the incident was handled by the security forces, Stephen Fray's escapade blared out just how porous security was at least one of the island's international airports. It is not unreasonable to assume it to be the same at the other.

In that regard, Prime Minister Golding's call for a full review of the security systems at Sangster and Norman Manley in Kingston was expected, although we would have expected that such an examination would have been automatic in the face of such a massive breach.

What is surprising - and we hope is merely loose phrasing by the prime minister - is that the government had, in the past, only maintained "an interest" rather than effective involvement in the security operations at the Sangster airport. Private operation of the airport does not, it seems to us, obviate the need for state involvement in its security; certainly not in the context of the post 9/11 world.

It is probably not feasible - perhaps not desirable - to have commercial airports crawling with military-type security officials. We would, however, expect that security protocols would be clearly established and, if not part of a single overarching regime, would face regular, robust testing and verification by requisite government agencies.

Rigorous training

Such systems demand the rigorous training and vigilance of line security officials, who must have the skill to defuse problems before they become crises. Happily, it is now a moot question of what might have been the case if Stephen Fray had encountered a regular armed Jamaican policeman while barging into Sangster's no-go zones.

The security review ordered by Mr Golding must also encompass the capacity of the Jamaican security forces to deal with even a mid-level incident by committed terrorists. There has been talk in the past of training special units of the police and the JDF to respond to such crises. It is perhaps those which were employed Sunday night, in which case Stephen Fray would not have been their sternest test.

The security forces, though, would have learned something from the event: the virtue of restraint and tactics - which were likely being reinforced by the presence of Mr Golding.

Maybe the PM should now preside over all police operations.

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