In 2005, the fifth estate addressed that very issue in a documentary called Fasten Your Seatbelts. In it, Hana Gartner and the fifth estate team enlisted the help of Steve Elson, a US Navy-trained covert operations and security expert, to evaluate airport security at Canada’s busiest airports. Going undercover, Elson showed how security systems can be breached and that Canadian airports, despite governments committing billions of dollars, are nowhere near as secure as authorities would have us believe.

Five years onward, in the wake of the arrest of the so-called “underpants bomber”, the fifth estate takes a new look at that original research and finds that not much has changed at all.

In this updated version of Fasten Your Seatbelts, Hana Gartner conducts a new interview with security expert Steve Elson. Passengers who hope that expensive new body scanners, about to be installed at major airports, will make flying safer should tune in for Elson’s findings – that the scanners are not fool-proof.