Aw, pilots are just plane people with a certain air about them.
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You know, I don’t understand this preoccupation with commercial aircraft as a terrorist weapon. Sure, it makes for great visuals on the evening news and galvinates politicians out for a fight. And it builds on the fears of the ignorant.
But there are less costly methods to achieve the same purpose. For example, in Portland, OR, just have one person pee into a water reservoir and be caught on surveillance camera. That panics officials to no end, and disrupts the entire water supply for 600,000 people. One person and a six-pack of beer ought to do it.
There are similar things terrorists could do in the US that are “low-tech” but can have volumes of panic and fear so as to tilt the economy, disrupt normal living and achieve the same goals.
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I can’t help thinking that the Malaysian airliner that disappeared could well have been a test to see how far they could get and at what heights in order to remain completely undetected. All of the coverage will have shown them exactly what worked and what didn’t.
Lovely.
Not many good targets in the ocean, though.
Airliners.net has a good discussion of the situation going on. Some of the very knowledgeable people there are saying that at least some of the planes weren’t stolen, they were repossessed by their owners to keep them safe (the airlines in question leased them). Two of the planes are supposedly in Malta but have some damage. There are people that specialize in repossessing airliners, ships and everything else so it is plausible although those must have been some of the most hazardous repossessions in history if it is true.
Snopes says, probably not.
If they have pilots trained in the specific planes (Type Rating) they could be used. If they know enough about ATC, they could “spoof” a legit flight and enter restricted airspace by taking the place of the real plane. Having a co-hort on the real plane would help - overtake it and turn the transponder to match an innocent (1200 might be a stretch) plane not in the area. While the authorities are trying to make sense of having two of some other flight, the spoofed plane has entered your airspace. Now it just needs to be off course a little bit…
Or they could sell the things - there are places where nobody cares to check data plates.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait, they grabbed a few airliners as loot. They were used to transoport pilgrims to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis checked the plates. Don’t know what happened to the pilgrims expect a round trip on that plane.