Posted on 09/12/2001 4:14:50 AM PDT by NonZeroSum
They blew their wad.
The grounding of the nation's air fleet can be lifted--it's safe to fly again.
Whoever committed this heinous crime yesterday did do the world at least one favor. In a single day, they ended the four-decade reign of fear over aircraft hijacking.
Forever.
This incident didn't result from a breakdown of security--no one had weapons that the security system looks for. The reason, and the only reason, that the perpetrators succeeded in their diabolical plot was that they had the element of surprise.
Prior to September 11, 2001, aircraft hijacking was something to be prevented if possible, but if it wasn't possible, the hijackers were people to be cooperated with until they could somehow be brought to justice, in order to save plane, crew and passengers.
This attitude allowed men armed, apparently, with only knives, to commandeer an aircraft in which they were massively outnumbered, by threatening or killing individual passengers and crew. To save those people, everyone went along, at least on three of the four planes.
Had those passengers been aware of the ultimate purpose of those hijackings, they would have failed--the hijackers would have been overcome and subdued, if not killed, by passengers and crew desperate to save themselves and their plane.
The paradigm has permanently shifted. From this day forward, passengers will now be aware that there are worse things than letting hostages die in an aircraft.
Whoever did this screwed it up for all future hijackers, regardless of their purpose. A similar scheme will not succeed today, or tomorrow, or any time that the flying public retain memories of what happened yesterday.
No need to change procedures--the potential victims themselves have changed, fundamentally, and will be victims no more.
Let the aircraft fly.
The point of the piece is that there is no need to do so. The existing system will be much more effective now, because the terrorists have reengineered the attitudes of the public. For at least the next few days or weeks, the response of airline passengers and crew to a hijacking will be not fear, but rage.
BUMP
I think that the point of the piece was to get people thinking, and rebuild that confidence. According to another thread, the fourth plane that went down in Pittsburgh was a failure for exactly the reason that the passengers found out the plan, and took it down themselves. Now that the cat's out of the bag, any further hijacking attempts will be futile. There may be one or two more before hijackers realize this, but once they do, hijacking will end.
As I said, the reaction of passengers to a hijacking today, as opposed to Monday, will be not fear, but rage. The paradigm has shifted.
The unhackable computer hasn't been designed yet...
Uh, I "commandeer" elevators all the time. Of course, given that they generally only run on a track that's no longer than the distance between top and bottom floors, I can't exactly go very far in them. But it's their limitted range, rather than their semi-automated control, which makes them not generally be attractive to hijackers.
I'm booked on flights next week for a Board meeting. My mom is already trying to convince me to drive. I've not made a decision. But if travel is still bad, I'm assuming the meeting will be postponed.
That's irrational (yeah, moms are like that). Air travel will be safer next week than it has been in years.
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