Boxcutters???
MFing boxcutters???
It seems the passengers on the PA flight diverted another abomination.
Or is this just typical of the usual East Coast indifference?
Boxcutters???
Are these citizens so friggin lax that they wouldn’t risk death to challenge assailants with BOXCUTTERS???
There MUST have been a threat that was present that we do not know about…or were our citizens just that sleepy?
:rolleyes:
It would not be too difficult for 4, 5, or 6 men with boxcutters (which may be more armament than anyone else on board) to storm the cockpit and gain physical control, and to put these boxcutters up to a few throats.
I don’t believe anybody on the planes really knew what the result would be until it was far too late.
I don’t believe any hijacking in history before now has ended with the airliner being converted into a giant bomb to kill possibly thousands of people on the ground as well as everyone on the plane. Up until now, hijackers have usually made “non-negotiable demands” and held people hostage and demaned to be flown to Libya or wherever the case may be. There was no way the passengers could have known what was planned in this case, and therefore no reason for them not to have done what all the authorities would have advised them to do in that situation before yesterday, which was to remain calm and cooperate with the hijackers and not do anything stupid/desperate/heroic to make the situation worse.
This has forever changed MY mental image of what I would do if I was on a plane that was hijacked. Before, my “game plan” as it were would be to lie low, as small as possible, and smile a lot and hope we get to ground safely.
Never again. The advice of many law enforcement types I have heard has been that if a rapist takes you somewhere far away from where you meet, there is a good chance you will die. In my mind now, if Muslim terrorists with boxcutters, knives, whatever take a plane I am on, my given assumption is that we are on a suicide attack, and I will much rather die under a knife trying to kill one of them than by augering it into the ground or flying into a building.
I agree. In the past it was always the terrorits who wanted a bunch of money or a flight to some other country or some of their buddies released from jail. No reason anyone should fight for that. But next time someone tries to hijack a U.S. flight, people are going to think of this…and I hope that it results in a few terrorists being ripped to pieces and flushed down the 747’s toilet.
I think this was a one-use-only trick that won’t work again.
Something that bothered me was that all last night I kept hearing people talking about how “this guy couldn’t be behind it, he doesn’t have the technology or assets for it.” Wha? It took maybe two dozen people, a trip to WalMart, and some plane tickets. People were amazed at how well timed it all was. Umm, hello? The timing was all done by the airlines… all the terrorists had to do was go online and find four flights (that we know of) going east to west at about the same time.
Indication is that with at least one of the planes the hijackers were at the controls of the plane. This did take some serious resources: finding at least four people with the ability to fly a jetliner, but without any moral scruples whatsoever, suicidal to boot and so ignorant that they didnot understand that this act would bring about the exact opposite of what was their likely goal.
Flying a jetliner isn’t that hard if its already in the air. You don’t have to take off, just get the pilot to fly to the general vicinity of new york and then kill him. After that its cake to steer into a huge building. Maybe a few hours playing with microsoft flight simulator just for practice…
Its not like they needed flight qualified pilots to do this.
Steering an airplane once you’re close to your target isn’t that hard, believe it or not. You could get the pilot to fly the plane close to New York and then kill him and take the controls. Once it’s flying level, guiding it into something wouldn’t be as difficult as you might think.
I agree with Ethilrist; this attack required a remarkable number of suicidal maniacs to pull off, but I could have financed it on my credit cards, and the amount of ultra-advanced planning once you have the suicidal maniacs in the country is minimal - geez, how hard is it to buy tickets on four planes that are leaving around the same time? This talk of how it couldn’t have been done without the support of a government is nonsense. That’s not to say it wasn’t supported by a government, but it’s certainly possible that it was a terrorist group, perhaps Hezbollah or Hamas.
The arguments for the supposed simplicity of this atrocity always seem to contain a form of “once you have enough suicidal maniacs” That’s the point exactly: it takes tremendous resources to get to that point where you have sufficient suicidal maniacs of sufficient technical capabilities at your disposal. I know I don’t have any, and wouldn’t know how to get some…
Besides which, succesfully getting 20 people to 4 different places (read on 4 different planes) at the same time, in secrecy, allowing for mishaps etc. is, though low-tech, a pretty big trick too.
The reason that the resources neccesary to execute this are important is that it gives at least the start of a remedy: Do not allow certain people to ammas these resources, or if they have amassed them, take them away.
There are two threads on this subject in GQ. I’ll close this one because it has the less descriptive title. See Hijacking airplanes with BOX CUTTERS???
bibliophage
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