I’m having a hard time buying this. It’s not that hard for several people to overpower someone with a knife, though admittedly it’s dangerous. If I had the choice between my plane crashing, and rushing some dude with a small knife, the choice is clear to me, I’ll take my chances.
My only theories are:
The terrorists killed the crew, then locked the cockpit. At that point it would not have been possible to stop the pilot.
The terrorists claimed to have a bomb.
The terrorists had other weapons, but the FBI or FAA is too embarrassed to tell us. One of the theories of the Kennedy and King assasinations is that the reason for police coverups was not some great conspiracy but to prevent people from realizing what a poor job they did protecting their targets. (Please don’t turn this into a thread over that though.)
Some of the people who were on the hijacked planes that were able to make phone calls mentioned bombs. The terrorists threatened to blow up the plane. I imagine that the victims thought that they were going to be taken hostage or something.
I believe there was a cell phone call from the plane which is what informed us that the terrorists had non-standard weapons which would likely get passed security anywhere.
Likely events are one: no one knew the intent of the hijackers. Standard crowd control ideas would tell them not to inform anyone of their true intent. Perhaps they acted in a “standard” hijacking manner, telling the passengers and crew that they were commandeering the plane for some political end, not necessarily as a weapon itself.
I doubt there was a cover-up over this affair.
If everyone believed they were NOT going to be killed if they simply did nothing, then they would do nothing. Almost everyone has heard or been informed at some time to comply with “bad guys” and let the law handle things afterwards. Give them your car, your wallet, whatever, to avoid personal damage… and so long as the hijackers also give the illusion that people can indeed avoid personal damage then everything will likely go off without a hitch.
I think that you have this right. And I imagine that it will change the attitude of future people on hijcked airplanes. I think that I would now do anything in my power to subdue hijackers. If they have a bomb they would have to use it, because I wouldn’t let any plane that I was on be used the way that the planes were yesterday.
Yes, but how could they have imagined that the hijackers were going to use the plane itself as a weapon? No one making any cell phone calls mentioned that they knew what was going to become of the plane, right? They just said the plane had been hijacked.
knives, even box-cutters, can be deadly in the hands of the right people. one of the cell phone calls indicates that at least one passenger was stabbed to death. put this together with the passengers not knowing the intent of the hijackers, and the plane would be theirs without much conflict.
That makes sense. I would imagine telling a planeload of passengers that you intend on crashing the plane into New York would lead to a revolt, bomb or no bomb. What about the stories of the terrorists telling the passengers “call your relatives and tell them goodbye” stories though? More ugly rumors from yesterday?
It could be true. Hijackers would have to put some fear into the passengers. A likely way to do it would be to threaten them with death. If you don’t feel scared for your life, you aren’t exactly a hostage…
But, anyone else think that americans are raised to be a bit passive as well? Think about it: store clerks are told to just give robbers whatever they want without resistance, kids are told to ignore bullies and they’ll go away, Saddam is still alive because the coalition forces didn’t finish the job, etc.
Was this a one shot deal?
If the passengers realize that they will die anyway, a hundred people will probably charge five armed with knives.
There will probably be a return of Air Marshalls on flights.
I think I heard on the radio there will be air marshalls on some or all flights today.
I also heard that on one flight, the perpetrators stabbed a steward (nice guys) prompting the flight crew to come out of the cockpit to be offed as well or something like that. Guess if you kill the pilots, there’s not much else the passengers can do, huh?
Not to sound flippant, but these terrorists have ruined it for decent hijackers everywhere.
I think that, with the images of jet fuel-laden planes crashing into inhabited buildings irrevocably seared into American consciousness, it will be difficult for some other group to duplicate the effort. Undoubtedly the passengers and crew didn’t rush the hijackers, even though they could have probably overcome them, because they believed that this was a “standard” hijack effort. Knowing they were facing certain death, as well as being the agents of death to hundreds or thousands of others, I think most people would have deliberately risked death and fought back.
It remains to be seen, of course… but I tell you that I cried, this morning, at the thought that this is actually what happened on the fourth plane, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania: that the passengers and crew fought back, and their struggles took the plane down early, in empty rural space… and what made me cry was the thought that they may have died believing that they acted wrongly and caused a disaster… never knowing that they saved the lives of however many people were in that plane’s intended target building.
Exactly Bricker…this may get people to fight back the next time someone tries to hijack a plane…anywhere in the world even. People will constantly remember the film of the WTC.
A bunch of people could certainly disarm a couple of hijackers wielding knives or boxcutters under ordinary on-land conditions, if they were willing to allow a few of their number to be seriously hurt or killed. You surround them, attack simultaneously, etc.
It’s a little different in the narrow aisle of an airplane. As I understand it, the passengers on one plane were herded to the back. They probably didn’t think of any such mass attack till later, and then their passage would have been limited to one person at a time, with a much likelier chance of lots of deaths.
Unless I KNEW where the plane was going to end up, I don’t think I’d consider it.
—Most people probably reacted by waiting to see what would happen…maybe picturing the plane being hijacked to a location and getting a chance to wait it out.
That would be a very reasonable conclusion. The very very typical hostage scenario we all know (knew).
I’d imagine that a flight attendant or more was immediately injured, probably mortally.
—If the crew was killed, and a terrorist was flying the plane, the passengers would simply being praying for a safe landing, and preparing to endure a typical sky jacking.
—Hearing the jackers tell the people they were going to die would not make people think they were human bombs…just typical hostages threatened with death.
—Passengers picutered a typical hi jack or hostage situation…the ones we have become familiar with thru TV, real or not.
That would be reasonable.
—If people were planning on overpowering the hijackers, they would be looking for that opportunity after landing, which it was assumed they would do.
—The PA plane crash was probably averted soley by the crew, who might have been placed on alert.
These conclusions are the most reasonable. Do not use your 20/20 hindsight to decide on what hijacked passengers would do. —Their decisions were based on previous knowledge, which would help them conclude thye would land somewhere.
Thanks for giving the passengers the benefit of the doubt. Cowardice or being “laid back” are not issues for discussion.
Vinnie, I doubt that they would cover up the terrorist’s having guns as it is obviously more embarrasing to have a plane hijacked by men with knives than guns.
As for box cutters, I never heard anything about that and it sounds like a rumor to me.
There is a story that three passengers did fear the worst and decided to try to overpower the terrorists on the plane that crashed in PA. The story goes that a passenger called his wife, and he said “We’re going to die, but three of us are going to try to do what we can to stop that.”
I heard about the boxcutters yesterday. I think they attributed that to Barbara Olson (is that the name?) who called her husband. I think they were saying she said they had ‘boxcutters’