The Irish and International media have been busy the past few days covering the story of the horrendously botched security test by Slovakian Border Police which resulted in 90 grams of high explosive RDX finding its way to Dublin from Bratislava in the backpack of an unsuspecting Slovakian electrician who was travelling back to Ireland after Christmas at home. This lead to a street in Dublin City Centre being closed this past Tuesday, with homes and businesses evacuated, while police and Army bomb experts raided the innocent electrician’s home to secure the explosives.

A full timeline for the story can be found here.

This is a tale which has a number of classic elements of an IQTrainwreck about it.

On one hand it is a cautionary tale about using “live” data (or, in this case, explosives) to test the effectiveness or efficiency of any process without sufficient safeguards in place to handle failures in the process.  It seems that the Slovakian police were testing the training of sniffer dogs by placing contraband in the baggage of unsuspecting civilians and one bag slipped through. Industry commentators have questioned this approach, pointing out that usually this kind of testing is usually done using fake explosives being carried by agents or officials who know what is going on.

According to today’s Irish Times:

Tibor Mako, head of the Slovakian Border Guard, said the border police dog-handler found one batch of explosives in the passenger’s bag but was called to another matter and “forgot” to remove a second batch. The officer informed the airport authorities of his error, but not his superiors.

If his superior officers had known, they “would have given an order to postpone the flight”, Col Mako told The Irish Times

IQTrainwreck Point 1: Breakdown in effective governance of information, leading to key facts being missed or miscommunicated.

However, the real Information Quality Trainwreck element to this story has only emerged in the last day or so relates to the communication channels used by the Slovakian police to attempt to alert the Irish authorities to the problem. The Slovakian authorities have insisted that they notified Dublin Airport Authority by Telex as soon as they discovered that the explosives had wound up on the plane. They have even gone as far as releasing a copy of the telex to the media.

This was obviously intended to calm the situation, but it simply served to highlight another problem.

The telex numbers that the Slovakian authorities used were not for Dublin Airport Authority or for the Irish Police. They were for a baggage handling company that serves the airline affected by this issue.

IQTrainwreck Point 2: Incorrect/Inaccurate information used to drive a critical process

Furthermore, key information was missing from the telex message, for example the nature of the explosive. As a result the baggage handling company assumed it was fake explosives and not a risk.

The text of the telex reads:

“Dear Colleagues, please be informed that we have received info from police department of (Tatry Airport) that there is forgotten sample of explosive material in baggage on bord of flight no V58230.”

“The sample of grey colour is in plastic bag (size 5x5cm) in the rare part of black backpack (under harnesses) in hold no 3 or 4. The sample is not dangerous, it is only used for dog training. It is not able to cause explosion nor fire (no power source of detonator is included) Pilot in command has been informed about this sample by ATC (air traffic control). We would like to kindly ask you to return that sample with flight no V58231. Thx for coop.”

In today’s Irish Times, a spokesman for the baggage handlers said:

His colleagues in Dublin were under the impression the material was a substance that mimicked explosives and was used only as an aid to train sniffer dogs.

IQTrainwreck Point 3: Incomplete/Inconsistent information affecting ability to make suitably prioritised decisions.