All this talk of increased Airport security....

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…sounds like complete idiocy to me.

Here’s a list that Mr. Cynical posted in chat which points to several of the things that are probably going to be done. I’ve even heard fairly authoritative claims that they are seriously considering banning carry-on luggage altogether.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The possibility that these attacks are the start of a greater effort definately warrant a stepped up level of seurity. But I don’t think that any of these measures would have prevented any of these events.

If reports are accurate so far it appears that the weapons were the equivalent of jailhouse shives. Either sharpened screw drivers, or blades assembled from common toothbrushes and razors. I don’t think that preventing visitors from passing through security without plane tickets is going to help this. Lets face it, this happened on one of the least busy travel days, it shouldn’t have been a matter of he gate check personel being over-loaded.

Banning all knives is logical, but that won’t address the rudimentary weapons one can make.

I fail to see the risk that off-site and curbside check in pose.

There’s a laundry list of things they are saying they will change in response to this and none of them strike me as things that would have even begun to prevent what happened. They all strike me as knee-jerk reactions that won’t do anything beyond allowing people to say “we did something”.

We should address what would have helped prevent this. They’ve been mentioned, but they seem much lower on the radar than these other items in that link.

  1. Air Marshalls on all flights. Uniformed or not, armed in some way which is deemed most safe and effective. Its unreasonable to expect pilots and flight attendants o deal with deraged passengers, let alone terrorists.

  2. Secure cockpits throughout the flight under all but the most extreme circumstances. Being familiar with the concepts of aircraft design, I know this isn’t as simple as installing a steel security door. But Boeing and AirBus should have done this sooner.

All the efforts to stop these threats early in the process are noble, but I feel misguided. The costs and inconvience of all this added terminal security measures aren;t absolute enough to be warranted. We could use hand metal detectors on every passenger and bag, but there still should be a line of defense onboard the plane.

If we can more successfully defend the crew in flight, we can more easily focus the terminal security measures towards more conventional threats like bombs and guns.

Seems obvious to me, but the news persons and “experts” don’t seem to have mentioned it.

I am frankly more concerned/outraged that 3-6 men were able to take complete control of an aircarft containing nearly a hundred Americans using only crude knives than I am knowing they were able to get the knives aboard.

Just my thoughts.

2

I agree with you 100 percent. Why don’t we have some security on these planes for Gods sake? Incidents before this with irate passengers should have told the authorities that something was needed. It makes you wonder if these security people were in place would this have happened? My prayeers and thoughts go out to the people directly affected by this senseless and insane act.

3

It looks like (possibly) nothing bigger than a wallet will be allowed. Now I’m just wondering if I’ll have to get to the airport two or three hours in advance, instead of one.

4

That is so impractical. Would you trust your laptop with Baggage Handlers?

It won’t happen for long, since it probably won’t prevent much. Of the shit I’ve gotten stopped for having in my bag, it amazes me that anything gets past as it is. (It sounds like not much did either) I mean I had to take a bottle of hair gel out cause it looked like a dagger. My mom had to explain a curling iron. Carry on luggage isn’t the cause of the problem.

5

Do we have such things as guns that can be fired on a plane without danger to the plane itself? Special bullets, maybe? If so, maybe the pilots and other cockpit staff should be armed?

6

They just announced today that no one will be allowed past security in Cleveladn Airport without tickets.
My son used to love to go in and watch the planes take off.
Guess thats over now.

7

I don’t have the time to research this but at sometime during the past two years, the FBI tested security at US domestic airports and 65% of the time were able to board domestic flights with their weapons. Generally, they didn’t go through the conventional routes but rather gained access through open side doors and through staff entrances. There is an official report somewhere.

This will now radically change as a result of the impending civil actions / insurance claims that run into $ billions against the Airlines and Airports.

FWIW, in comparison with Europe and elsewhere (where terrorist actions have long been a part of life), security within the US is appalling, IMHO.

It hasn’t impinged on anyone’s ‘freedom’, IMHO.

8

Well, howabout the checkin procedures?

If I have an e-ticket, I can go to a machine, enter a credit card that matches the name on the ticket, answer all the “security questions”, and board the plane with my luggage without interacting with a soul. I have to put my bag on the conveyor belt for scanning and walk through the metal detector, and I have to hand my boarding pass to someone at the gate. I’ve often thought how easy it would be for someone with malicious intentions to get on planes using e-tickets. No one checks a picture ID of me, no one visually confirms that I’m not a shady character, no one really looks at me at all.

9

If they tell you they have a bomb and you haven’t heard about the other incidents, you have no reason to think that they are just 3-5 guys with only knives. You’d more likely think that, like most hijackings you’ve heard about, the plane might have a bomb, but that it will land somewhere and negotiations will begin.

Being insulated from the other incidents, not knowing anything else was going on, would certainly lead to some people, maybe most people, deciding that it may be better to wait it out rather than risk blowing up the plane.

Knowing what we know, that there were multiple simultaneous incidents and that terrorists likely did not have bombs, just the knives, it is much easier to imagine rushing the men holding the knives en masse, risking a few people getting cut and taking control back. Not knowing all that, the picture muddies significantly.

10

Yes, there are what’s known as frangible bullets, which are often used for home defense by people who live in thin-walled apartments. They will fragment rather than go through walls. I think the skymarshalls use these.

There is also low-powered ammo. I have some .22 that won’t penetrate thick sheet metal but I still wouldn’t want to be shot by it.

11

There’s a “management mentality” that “people in charge” have that says “We have to do something” whenever some situation occurs, even if the “something” is not something that would have prevented the situation to begin with.
Banning knives might have stopped these terror attacks (but no guarantee), but there are no indications that they were lacking tickets or proper ID.

12

[/QUOTE]

It looks like (possibly) nothing bigger than a wallet will be allowed. Now I’m just wondering if I’ll have to get to the airport two or three hours in advance, instead of one. **
[/QUOTE]

You are probably one of the few that arrive with time to spare. I have seen many times people rushing to catch a plane. You can’t tell me that these people or their baggage has been thoroughly checked in the 4 minutes they have been in the airport. I feel like saying to them “HELLO was it a suprise what time your flight was ??? you only had the tickets for the past month!” If these people can’t get to airport with time to have a thorough search/scan of them and luggage then catch the next plane! This is beginning to sound like a rant so I’ll stop now. BTW I am not suggesting we do a cavity search on every one just let’s take the time to do the job right, slowly and carefully.

13

I can see you have never travelled on business before. I do a few times a year. On domestic flights, I usually plan to get to the airport an hour before boarding starts. That means I plan to get to the airport about an hour and a half before the plane scheduled to depart.

Last December I took such a trip and planned accordingly. On my way to the airport (30ish mile trip, planned an hour in morning rush hour traffic to make the journey), not one, not two, but THREE different accidents were along my only route. Took twice as long to reach the airport. I was literally RUNNING for the gate and made it at last boarding call.

That was the first leg of a multi-flight route to get me to the left coast. There was no “catch the next flight” because there was a connecting flight that had to be made or lose an entire day to travel.

The point is that shit happens. So do not get all high and mighty about people who appear late for a flight. You have no clue of their circumstances.

14

As a matter of fact the only time I have flown is for business. Never had a problem making it to the airport.

K

15

Yeah, this has been on my mind, and I weighed it against my opinion, but I reach a point where I imagine the scenario. While one may not act at the first sign of trouble, I am guessing that they would notice the magnitude of the situation when they saw the course they were taking in the minutes before the impact. If you were to see your plane at lower than 2000 feet over the NYC skyline you’d think you’d realize this probably isn’t your typical hijack/hostage situation. Knives or no knives, 6 vs 90 is going to end in a fairly quickly victory.

I want to be cautious in this, and definately don’t want to go blaming the victims aboard the three planes which reached targets (especially considering it fairly off topic here), but I really wonder what conditions were so vastly different between the first 3 planes and the last one.

The main point I was trying to make, nevertheless, is that trying to ramp up all the security measures before you get on the plane are far more costly, far more cumbersome, and far less effective than simply getting directly to the point of concern.

I’m really eager to hear the voice recorder tapes of these events. I truly hope the ones in NYC are salvagable. It may shed alot of light on what actually happened.

16

Actually, I’ve never flown before. But thank you for telling me what I “probably” am.

:rolleyes:

I’m planning a trip in October. When I received flight information, I was advised to arrive at least an hour early on both the initial and return flights. I would guess that airlines will now advise people to arrive 2-3 hours early, rather than just one.

**
Yes, and everyone is just like you.

Please, allow me to reiterate - :rolleyes:

17

Omni, I’ve been thinking exactly the same thing about securing the cockpit and having marshals on board.

I wanted to expand on what thinks said about overpowering the hijackers though.

Every adult in this country has been witness to multiple airline hijackings over the last 20 years. We are all familiar with the MO of hijackers: They hijack the plane, maybe kill one or two people, then negotiate the hostages or get shot and the hostages go free. We’ve all seen this countless times over the years. I, as a parent, don’t have the luxury of becoming a hero if I believe we may all (or at least most of us) will end up safe. I can’t believe the people on the airlines knew they were part of a mission that would end in death until it was too late to stop the hijackers. I believe that most people, if they actually knew the hijackers’ plan, would have risen up against their attackers to regain control of the plane.

18

Demo, you could be right, and I am wondering what indeed the circumstances were onboard. However, the planes were coming in low over the city at approach speeds. This would have to raise serious alarm among passengers that it wasn’t like the terrorist hijackings we’ve seen over the decades. In order to navigate the craft to its target like they were, the pilot had to be virtually unharrassed up to the final seconds.

I’m just imagining myself watching this as if it were a movie and bitching about the creative license the director took. Seems like something is missing.

19

I posted this link in another thread. It’s a Slate piece about the changing nature of terrorism, and why those people probably did nothing:

http://slate.msn.com/framegame/entries/01-09-13_115402.asp

20

Thank you to slackergirl for the link. That’s why Flight 93 had a different ending. The people on board were aware of what had happened in NY, through cell phone calls with relatives on the ground. That has been documented in several articles I’ve read -one of which is at http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/256/nation/Calls_deliver_clues_and_last_goodbyes+.shtml
I was saying pretty much the same thing to a friend this morning. What is the first thing you think of when you hear hijacking? Ok, we’re going to Cuba (or was that just the 70’s destination?) and there will be negotiations, etc and if we can all keep level heads maybe we’ll get out of this alive. Up until Tuesday morning who would have conceived of the idea that they were going to use this plane as a missile and blow up a building - no matter what the flight path looked like or how low the plane was flying. Many reports indicate that the people were “herded” into the back of the plane and may have been unable to see anything beyond their captors. I would guess that was intentional on the part of the terrorists precisely to prevent people from seeing the flight path and target.

I just heard a few low rumbles outside and I honestly started to get nervous, living less than 60 miles from Boston. Up until Tuesday, I would have thought nothing about a passing thunderstorm.