First of all, thank God this guy was thwarted. Kudos to all the heroes.
However, the fact that this guy brought aboard two “weapons” (how long is 15cm anyway?) that he knew could not be detected by the security machines means he was a bit more coherent than he is now appearing. Is he Australian? Have they found out where he was fired from and if it has any connection to the airlines?
Well just because someone is mentally ill doesn’t mean they’re stupid. Besides, generally terrorist groups are zealous and would claim responsibility even for the attempted hi-jacking.
Still, I agree this should be inspected more closely.
My mistake. Slightly under 6 inches. I can imagine where two sharpened 6 inch stakes would be devastating. I have pretty large hands, and if I held the stakes so that my hand was completely filled, there would still be 2 inches protruding. I could do a ton of damage with two inches of sharpened stake. I could slash faces, put out eyes, penetrate sinuses, puncture carotid arteries, puncture intestines, and possibly even penetrate a lung or maybe the heart.
If I “choked down” on the stick, there’d be even more sticking out, and I could do even more damage.
For instance, take one of those standard “Uniball” pens most people have in their office. Take the cap off and put it on the rear of the pen. That’s slightly less than 6 inches.
Now grip it in your fist either like you’re going to stab upward or downward.
You could hurt someone very, very badly with one of those.
