I have several layers of protection to save me from the many layers of vulnerability that was thrust upon me. Unless the 12 jurors were on that same plane, they are not my peers. They did not feel the panic or the sense of danger that was in that situation. The law now makes me answer for resolving a situation where it was not present in. I “depended” on their protection, and when I found them inadequate, I took steps to participate in my own protection, so I now have to answer to the law?
I am not saying its alright to take the law into your own hands, but I am advocating they allow leeway in that law to encompass sitautions like this. The law that protects you for personal self defense does not allow you to defend others.
They should ammend the good samaritan law to allow for situations like this.
I would prefer it if our government did not negotiate with terrorists aside from “If you land the plane safely and leave it with your hands up, we will refrain from killing you and you can go to trial”.
Terrorists will be less likely to hijack planes if the government is disposed to shooting them out of the sky if they succeed, and if, therefore, the passengers and crew are disposed to try to jump them at any conceivable opportunity in order to save their own lives.
This will, in the long run, make airline passengers much safer.
Recently in the news - the Al Queda are planning more suicide hijackings of planes. Perhaps this belongs in a separtae thread but might be appropriate here. Basically, shouldn’t a hard and fast rule for any hijacking be “ALL hijackings are to be considered lethal. Move as quickly as you can AGAINST the hijackers. NO negotiating, NO hostages, etc”
Considering the events of Sept 11, 2001, can there be any other policy?
Morale: Suicidal people dont really care about the method of dying.
That brings about the issue I brought up earlier. If we must move fast and hard against a lethal attack, there must be some protection in the law in cases of error. That would remove any second thoughts about going into action and provide a deterrance from hoaxes and deceptions.
I don’t think the suicide bomber would bother announcing anything – he’d just blow up the plane. Less information for the feds to work on after-the-fact.
I have this sinking feeling that the new breed of terrorist might not even be on board. Look how long it took to figure out the Locherbie (sp?) crash.
with all those stupid warnings about electronic devices interfering with take offs and landings, could you just remove all the RF shielding on your laptop and muck things up?
I meant to address this earlier. Sarcasm is fun, but it doesn’t apply, at least in our case.
My husband may look like a nice guy, but he has plenty of experience in life-threatening situations. He has been stabbed, shot at, and has been in all sorts of iffy places with iffy people. He even lived in New York for a while! :surgo:
I would actually prefer to have him on the plane than an air marshall, but that’s just me.
Look…I don’t know your husband. Maybe he is as fearless as you perceive him as. I know people who are like that. It’s just that since 9/11 I’ve heard a lot of people talking big about what they would do if their plane was hijacked.
Wrestling a lone guy with a boxcutter or a bomb in his shoe is one thing. It’s quite another to fight against an organized group of armed men in the confines of a cramped airplane full of housewives, children and middle-aged overweight businessmen.
Saaaay…by any chance would your husband’s name be Lucky?
The thought of 3 or 4 poeple thinking theyre Wesley Snipes is kinda frightening too (especially if theyre white) hopefully, thats in the far end of the debate about “adequate protection” Vigilante justince at 50,000 feet wasnt what I had in mind either.
When you have a crowd of people focusing on one specific objective, its very hard to stop at just subduing a perceived threat.
What if a Pakistani, who speaks no word of english and has never flown on an airplane before, gets up and pounds on the cockpit door thinking it was the toilet. He really has to pee really bad and the plane is nearing to land at New York. His friend is yelling at him in Paskistani to sit down right now and telling the other passengers that he just really needs to pee.
certain people would drop this guy and a few others kick him while he’s down. The need for action is not debatable (anymore) the need to be able to recognize what the situation calls for now needs to be addressed.
X~Slayer(ALE)
Maybe this is extreme, but perhaps a passenger should vaguely know the country’s language of the airplane on which they are flying. It would be VERY simple to test anyone boarding a plane. If they don’t speak the language, they don’t get on board.
OR if it is an absolute life or death, GradeA gilt-edged priority that they MUST fly, it should be explained in his native language how dangerous ANY of his actions may be interpreted and how it could lead to consequences up to AND including death.
Yeah seems harsh but since Sept 11th, 2001, we can’t afford the “luxury” of having ANYONE aboard a plane if their actions could appear threatening in the slightest fashion.
You’re kidding, right? Because ignoring all the other impractical aspects of this idea, this move alone would be a death wish for the tourism industry.
In most previous hijackings, the hijackers are not suicidal but want to fly the place to someplace or make some demands. So it would be premature to shoot down any plane that was hijacked. 9-11 was the exception to the rule. In addition, it is possible that there were no hijackers, since the Armed Forces Pathology Institute has identified all the bodies on the plane that hit the Pentagon, and there were no Arabs on board. So what really happened?
But if I’m going to fly in an airplane where the majority of people speak Chinese, or Klingon, or whatever, then it behooves me to learn a few simple phrases in those languages.
Phrases like, “Yes,” “No,” “Where is the sanitary facility?”, “I require medical attention,” and “How may I reach the American Embassy, please?”
I mean, you go anywhere without knowing SOME phraseology, you’re kind of screwed. At the very least, I wouldn’t gripe if I was suddenly tackled by a gang of freaky passengers because I was banging on the wrong door.
I did kind of wonder when the government announced that they’d heard that more plane hijackings were on the way. What the heck? Man, if I were in charge of any terrorist organization, the LAST thing I’d want to do is repeat the 9/11 thing so soon. Blow a plane UP, maybe… but hijack one? Not without a friggin’ submachine gun and a LOT of ammo… because box cutters really ain’t gonna cut it next time, and Brutus, above, was quite correct in pointing out that it might not be Americans at risk next time…
Errm, well I read the link from the link and I can’t see where it says that there were no Arabs on board. It does talk about listing “victims” - maybe the hijackers are not listed as they were not considered to be “victims”?
Good question. It will probably remain one of the greatest mysteries of our time. We can definitely say that Salem Al-Hazmi was not involved:
Salem Al-Hazmi (Flight 77)
“Mr Al-Hamzi is 26 and had just returned to work at a petrochemical complex in the industrial eastern city of Yanbou after a holiday in Saudi Arabia when the hijackers struck. He was accused of hijacking the American Airlines Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon.” - Telegraph 23rd September 2001.
By comparing the published passenger list and the list of identified bodies, there are three names that are not on the passenger list but were identified by the AFIP: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague.
I would think that a real investigation would start with these names and figure out who they were and what they were doing on the plane.
Lets see. If a muslim terrorist were slated to dive bomb the pentagon, would he
a) Use his real name
b) get a passport or identity that might be traced back to a terrorist organization
c) Be conspicuous and bring attention to himself
d) Act like a devout muslim knowing that his deed will give him a free ticket to heaven despite any past sin.
e) get a ticket under his own personal credit card, complete with credit history and past purchase history.
f) leave any trace of his past life.
These people were fanatic and suicidal not stupid…
…and we bombed afghanistan for 9-11 not Iraq. we wanted to kill saddam for a looooong time.
I think the response to this has been pretty well summed up by other posters; by your inaction, you are risking your life and your family’s life even more than by your action. Assuming that these are suicide plane-bombers: Inaction = 100% fatality rate for your loved ones, Action = X% fatality rate for your loved ones, where X is less than 100.
The equation only gets muddled when you are not sure if the hijackers do intend to crash the pane. In this case, everyone would have to use their best judgment, but obviously, if a passenger tries something, it would probably be optimal to join him (and get others to join him), because a failed mutiny against hi-jackers would probably result in a lot of dead passengers, so your best chance would be to make sure the mutiny works.
If you were the one deciding whether or not to try something (i.e. no one else has up to this point), I guess you’d try to take into consideration everything you’ve overheard from the hi-jackers, and also be aware of where the plane is. If you are above or heading towards a city, then that is a potential warning sign about a kamikaze plan.
Of course, any smart hi-jacker nowadays would know that 9/11 has essentially screwed them over, as being able to credibly convince passengers and crew that you have no intention of suicide would be a tall task indeed. I predict that the only hi-jackings that will occur on a route that Americans travel on would be suicide ones; those with other purposes should realize that they have very little chance of accomplishing anything in the air except the deaths of people on board the plane (whether only their own, or everybody’s).
Perhaps in non-American travel areas, such as a domestic flight in India, a hi-jacker may be able to get away with it, but Americans will have 9/11 on the brain for a long time…
Sorry for posting twice, but I wanted to respond to:
Perfectly true; most people fantasize doing heroic things under life-threatening conditions.
However, I would submit that fighting back against hi-jackers that you know are going to crash the plane is not really heroism, it’s neccessity. I myself am pretty cowardly when it comes to physical confrontation, as I don’t know how to fight. But if I know that my life is forfeit unless I do something, then I am going to do that something. It’s like a cornered rat. If you threaten a rat, it will run away. If it has nowhere to run, it will bite and scratch and claw its way through you. People like me are like that rat. I would submit that most people who think they would be heroes may not necessarily be so. But I do not doubt that most of those people will fight back when cornered on a suicide weapon-plane, for they have nowhere to run.
The lions (however few or many they are) would fight for whatever cause they deemed just, and would obviously fight here. In this case, they would also have the support of all of us rats, because we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
