Posted on 09/13/2001 2:05:40 PM PDT by SpyGuy
We must all face the fact that--short of strip-searching everyone and eliminating carry-on luggage--it is impossible to prevent determined hijackers from smuggling weapons onboard aircraft. (And even strip-searching passengers won't prevent terrorists from planting weapons onboard using airline maintenance or service personnel.)
As this recent tragedy shows, terrorists need not smuggle guns or grenades aboard to accomplish their goals. A simple piece of sharp plastic, a razor blade, a garrote, or a cologne bottle filled with any flammable liquid will suffice.
The problems with current (and proposed) airport/airline security are similar to the problems with gun control. They work to keep honest people honest, but are not very effective at stopping determined criminals.
But there is one aspect of hijackings that seems to always be overlooked: motivation. What is it about hijacking an airplane that makes it such a desired target of terrorists? In one word: "control." When a terrorist threatens passengers, they are able to sieze control of a very powerful weapon (the airplane). That weapon can be used for intimidation (threat of loss of life) or actual destruction as witnessed last Tuesday.
An effective way of preventing hijacking is to remove the opportunity for control from the situation. Why this has not been widely addressed in the airline industry before is, quite frankly, beyond me.
This is my proposal for reducing the threat of hijacking:
1. The aircraft cockpit must be completely separate and isolated from the passenger compartment. No locked doors, as they can still be opened by force or by intimidation. I'm talking a solid bulkhead. The flight crew can only enter/exit via doors to the exterior of the hull. This eliminates the possibility of a terrorist ever gaining access to the flight controls.
2. No verbal communications from the passenger compartment to the cockpit (however, the pilot can still verbally address the passenger compartment). A simple annuciator panel can be installed to allow the flight attendents to pass pre-determined messages to the cockpit. For example, there could be the following messages: Ready for takeoff; Ready to land; Passengers secured; Last instruction complied with; Emergency. Note that the type of emergency is not stated. If a pilot receives an "Emergency" notification, they automatically divert to the nearest airfield. This eliminates the possibility of a terrorist giving orders to the flight crew. The most that a terrorist can do (besides blowing the airplane up which is simply unpreventable) is to force the pilot to divert and land the airplane.
3. Once a flight is diverted for a passenger compartment emergency, the pilot can shut the aircraft down and activate a system that prevents the engines from being started for a pre-determined period of time, say 24-48 hours. This would prevent the terrorists from immediately issuing flight demands to pilots on the ground (or from having their own pilots immediately take control). They would either have to give up their effort, de-plane and try to sieze a new aircraft, or wait for the timer to expire. In any case, it would give authorities time and opportunity to overcome the situation.
4. Of course, for this to work, then all communications between the passenger compartment and ground would have to be eliminated (to prevent the terrorists from issuing demands to ground controllers which could then be relayed back to the pilots by radio). While this would be an inconvenience to the modern air traveler, I think it would be a fairly small sacrifice for the increased security (certainly a far smaller sacrifice than some of the restrictions on personal freedom being proposed in the wake of this recent terrorist attack!). For those who can't bear to think about not being able to call from air to ground, just remember that Air Phones are recent travel ammenities; our society functioned just fine for decades before they were available. Aircraft would also have to be modified to prevent the use of cell phones, either by RF shielding or selective jamming.
5. Air Marshalls must be implemented. However, unlike the current proposals of placing one on every flight, I would put groups of three or four or five on random flights (I doubt we could afford to put several on every flight). A single Air Marshall would not be effective against a group of terrorists, especially if some are "sleepers" (planted among the passengers and not acting with the main terrorist group, but ready to take out an Air Marshall once he presents himself). By having the Air Marshalls act in groups on random flights, the terrorists would never know which aircraft would have a formidable defense team onboard.
None of this would 100% guarantee the safety of an aircraft; such a goal is impossible to acheive. For example, a terrorist could always just kill people onboard for the sake of killing them (no different than killing them on the street) or a terrorist could possibly blow-up the whole aircraft. Also, there is not much that could be done to prevent terrorists on the ground from claiming to have a bomb on an aircraft and trying to exercise their will through intimidation. But my proposals would certainly eliminate the type of terrorist acts witnessed Tuesday, and would help minimize other acts of violence onboard airlines.
Impractical and very expensive if not impossible. I worked at a heavy aircraft overhaul facility and I know that while isolating the cockpit by a solid bulkhead is certainly possible, putting in a door for the flight crew to enter and exit is not. A more solid door that is bullet resistant and impossible to open without explosives is relatively easy to do.
Why not simply require the pilots and co-pilots and flight engineers to undergo weapons training and carry guns? In addition, allow CCW holders to carry aboard the plane.
First, it is important to remember that a single misplaced bullet can bring down the entire plane. While the vast majority of gun owners are responsible individuals, there are enough irresponsible ones out there to make this a very risky and dangerous proposition. Just think about the accidental discharges that occur. Does that mean that people should be banned from owning guns? No, if a bozo is stupid enough to put a bullet in his own foot, that's his problem. But I don't want him armed on an airplane with me.
Second, in light of the fact that aircraft are so vulnerable, allowing just anyone on board with a weapon--permit holders or otherwise--is an invitation to criminals, loonies, and terrorists to wreak havoc. As I said before, it is impossible to stop a determined terrorist, but we shouldn't make it easy for them either. And while a knife can be used to effect terror, it is not as dangerous to the overall safety of an aircraft as a firearm (provided that the terrorists are not allowed to use the knife to seize control of the aircraft).
Third, we all know that many shooters are not very good shots--even police with training requirements. CCW is practical on the ground because, generally, the only people in the vicinity are the criminal and the armed defender. (How often are violent crimes against a single victim perpetrated among a large group of bystanders?) So if there are a few stray shots, generally little or no harm is done. But on a crowded airplane, even if the missed shots didn't bring down the plane, there is a good chance innocents would be injured or killed.
Fourth, most terrorists are not ordinary street thugs (no matter how they are portrayed by Hollywood. They are highly-trained and skilled soldiers. An aircraft hijacking is one of the few situations where trained professionals are needed to ensure the odds of success with minimal collateral casualties.
I really think the time for accomodating our society to the existence of these pigdogs is past.
Solve the problem of the enemy's will to fight. Then the problem of what he does when he gets here will go away all by itself.
I completely disagree. Armed aircrew would not have prevented this and it will not prevent future terrorist acts.
Imagine this scenario: there are five terrorists in the passenger compartment and they have rounded up a bunch of passengers at knife point. They have the hostages tied and doused with flammable liquid and are using them as a shield; a couple of terrorists hold burning flares. They demand that the flight crew surrender their weapons or they torch the passengers. What do you think the pilot is going to do? Come out blasting?
Many people assumed that the pilots knew that the terrorists were on a suicide mission when they took over the plane. More than likely, the pilots thought the terrorists were going to demand a ransom of some sort or a flight to a particular destination. The terrorists probably told the pilots everyone would be safe if they flew to LaGuardia and then, once set up on the airway over NYC, killed the pilots and took control to fly into the WTC.
Granted, from now on many pilots will realize the possibility for similar suicide missions. But does that mean they are just going to crash the plane whenever there is a hijacking? Of course not. There will always be the hope that THIS hijacking is not a suicide mission. As such, they are not going to risk killing passengers in a shoot-out with terrorists.
Not to mention that most terrorists are highly-trained and skilled soldiers. There is no way armed flight crews would be a match for these types of terrorists. You are deluding yourself if you think that Joe Pilot is suddenly going to turn into Rambo--like a bad Hollywood movie--and kick the terrorist's butts.
Probably the best thing would be those round mirrors mounted all around the cabin so all the passengers could see what was going on all the time.
Which is why I proposed the above. My proposals do NOT affect the passengers (other than stopping the air phones and cell phones), but rather modify the way the airlines design and run their aircraft. There is no need to enforce draconian regulations on the passengers; to do so would be futile anyway. The idea is to take away the one thing airlines currently offer to terrorists: motivation.
If what happend Tuesday wasn't so tragic, the above would be funny. I guess Kongress should just pass a law that knives can't be used as weapons anymore.
Jim, Jim...there you go, thinking like a rational human being again. How do you take away the will to fight from an enemy that is willing to kill himself to accomplish his mission? You have to stop thinking like us and start thinking like them to see the futility of your statement.
Death on the "battlefield," to these people, is their ticket to reaching the highest state of eternal nirvana. Bomb them all you want, they will just come back for more. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for retribution. But if you think that will stop them, you are sadly mistaken.
As warriors, these terrorist have a distinct psychological advantage over us: they have no fear of death (in fact, they welcome it). In the hours following this terrorist attack, you already have the pacifists, cowards, and politically correct of our society calling for restraint and sympathizing with the poor innocent civilians in Afganastan that might get a bomb dropped on them.
The terrorists, on the other hand, have no compassion for us, no remorse, and no politically correct feelings of diversity and "why can't we all just get along" horsesh*t. When we drop a precision bomb on a military target, we feel bad about--and some protest--the results. When they kill thousands, they dance in the streets.
No, we can not win this war by intimidation.
Shooting guns on planes can puncture the airframe and depressurize the plane. However thier is a particular round and load that does not penetrate too far that could be used. I can't remember it by name but i'm sure someone on FR can.
And if you were capable of critical and rational thought, my statements would be neither funny nor tragic. My point is that we need to prevent terrorists from seizing control of aircraft no matter what weapons they employ. For you to construe my statements into a call for any type of government weapons control shows that you either did not read my original post, or you did not comprehend it.
Agreed. I'm afraid we'll be getting behind the curve focusing solely on airline safety while these guys may be busy working on new methods - tour buses filled with explosives, nukes, chem/bio weapons, whatever. It's impossible to eliminate the entire range of methods and opportunities, so let's concentrate on eliminating the perpetrators and potential perpetrators.
While your intentions are good, your working knowledge of modern aircraft is poor. You seem to have gotten your info about them from Hollywood, in particular that stupid Batman movie wher the Joker takes down Batman's jet with a pistol. Believe me, modern aircraft have triple and quadruple redundant systems making it very unlikely that a single bullet will hit anything critical enough to cause the plane to crash (remember how tiny a bullet is compared to a 747).
First, it is important to remember that a single misplaced bullet can bring down the entire plane.
I certainly understand that a one bullet fired from a firearm could bring down an airplane. I in no way was advocating that just anyone with a permit be allowed to carry one onto an aircraft. I specifically stated that the people who would be allowed to carry them would be very carefully screened. Also in this case, the catastrophic loss of an airplane was far from being the worst possible result. If nothing else, a bullet fired through the windows of the aircraft could have thwarted the goals of these terrorists.
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