A combination of a dead cell phone battery and then a social media blackout gave us an uncomfortable few hours until we made contact with a friend who was scheduled to arrive at Ataturk last night. Like the Istiklal bomb, this is one that shook me a bit - I travel through Ataturk regularly and couldn't count how many times I've hung about the arrivals area either having a post flight smoke (yeah, yeah) or waiting for the Havas.
As for anyone suggesting that the authorities could have done more in respect of security, that's complete bollox. Ataturk is a major international hub with tens of thousands of folks going through it every day. Some arrive by metro, some by Havas but a good number arrive by taxi/private car - if you've ever travelled to the airport via the E5 you'll know the volume of traffic arriving every hour. How are the authorities meant to secure a such busy airport without making it grind to a halt? There has to be a balance and any regular visitor to Ataturk can testify to the amount of security thats been in place for the past nine months or so.
In fact, it is likely that due to the level of security two of these scumbags had to detonate themselves outside the terminal - the one who did make it inside was shot by a Polis.
Post Lockerbie the security at Heathrow was increased substantially and it is acknowledged now that the queues of folks waiting to get in to the airport would present this type of terrorist with a far better target - more bodies concentrated in one area.
Another sad day for Turkey.
JF
Edit: Just seen
this on BBC re airport security, funnily enough they cite Heathrow as well.