Posted in General K9 Explosive Detector Unit Visits OHS

Date: 04 December 2020

What a treat it was for the Year 10 Services students to be visited by a team from the Civil Aviation Authority, Aviation Security K9 Explosive Detector Unit. Karina, Denise and Brett gave a fascinating insight into their work and brought with them one of their detector dogs.

The job of these teams, who operate at airports around NZ is to keep all passengers and staff safe while they are on the airport grounds and in the air. Prior to the 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers in New York, NZ had 4 teams working in explosive detection, after 9/11 we had 34 teams working in 3 shifts around the clock.

The dogs in the unit are trained to sniff out explosives only. They can sniff out explosives in 15 seconds, considerably faster than any other detection method. The dogs love their work, detecting is a game for them, they are rewarded with play. Students were lucky enough to see a dog working on the school grounds. The dog found the hidden explosive (not live) quickly and sat down to indicate that the package was suspicious.

To work in one of these teams you must love dogs and be an excellent communicator. You will need to be a New Zealand citizen, pass a police check and have a clean drivers licence.

If you would like to find out more about this job you can see Ms Shaw in careers next year!