Probably because, as as been pointed out several times in this thread already, what you though was security gap, isn’t.
If the problem was snakes on a plane they ignored you because that is so 2006.
If not snakes, it must be the lesser known Cats on a plane!
Since you were clearly worried enough to do something about it why don’t you tell us what the problem was.
That way we can either reassure you that it’s not a big deal or, if it is, one of us will be able to get the information to the right people.
I wouldn’t fear terrorists finding the information here and using it. As others have said, they’ll more than likely already have thought of it and I doubt that any future attack will involve planes anyway.
This whole thing is absurd no matter what it is. Think about what exists beyond security checkpoints. There are huge shipment of all kinds of goods from food to books, to all kinds of things that could be used as weapons. No one can make those totally secure. Maximum security prisoners often have no problem getting contraband in and they are totally controlled felons in some of the most watched circumstances possible.
Major airports have liquor service behind those checkpoints. Regular vodka doesn’t burn well but if you take some of the high proof rum or vodka, you can make yourself quite a bomb if you know what you are doing and that is just with common materials.
Let me be one of the first to pint out the obvious. The September 11th hijackers did not use any contraband substances. Razor blades were allowed as carry one items for obvious reasons as were things like my prized Swiss Army knives that I often just dropped in the coin tray and retrieved on the other side. I even had a security agent open a pet carrier bag at Logan in 1999 (I warned her hard) and had our full-sized pet iguana, Attilla, jump on her ample chest and then run very quickly through the terminal. I had no choice to bolt through security to get him and I think everyone was happy that I did.
There is a fundamental disconnect with reality with people that worry about this crap. I can and often do think about ways you could all kinds of security if you wanted to. The possibilities are endless and, unlike the OP, I could start the longest thread in this boards history about how you could do it. However, the real key isn’t some esoteric weakness that someone sees, it is psychological and that is the entire reason why the 9/11 hijackers were successful. They exploited very minor security weaknesses and combined those with both airline procedure and psychological loopholes.
No one has made a successful weapons based attack on an American airliner in recent years so why does this seem to be the focus of so many pundits?
to respond to you and q.e.d.: i do not want to specify what the gap is on the board, in the event that just possibly this is something that hasn’t been thought of, idon’t want to give any terrorists ideas.
Is it the fact that you and all your friends can bring as much gel and liquid bombstuff as you want on the plane in 3 oz. ziplock baggies and then pool it together once you’re on the flight?
Is it the fact that while you have to take off your shoes, there is currently no requirement for passengers to take off their clothes while passing through security, potentially allowing all sorts of flat, non-metallic weapons in the air?
Or what about the fact that if all the passengers are in on it, a plane could be hijacked, weapons-free, using brute force methods? We have to check before each flight to make sure that there are a critical number of complete strangers on the boarding list!
Seriously, all the security measures you can dream up might be in place and a determined person could still take down any plane he wanted to. All the airport security increases of the last few years have only been for the passenger’s peace of mind, and I’m sorry to see they haven’t worked out so well for you.
Yeah, the stupid “surrender your gels” rule really ticks me off, when it would be trivial to smuggle gallons of liquid under your clothes…
Frankly, this is ridiculous. The terrorists already have ideas–LOTS of them. And most of them are probably more effective than anything you might have dreamed up. That’s what the truly dedicated ones do: sit around all day dreaming up ways to inflict death and destruction upon their perceived enemies.
NadaHappyCamper, the reason nobody has flown any more planes into any more buildings (or blown up a plane, or held it hostage, or etc…) lately isn’t for lack of ideas; it is only because nobody has wanted to do it bad enough. It isn’t difficult to think of a way to do it, as you have recently found out; it is only difficult to talk oneself into it.
Don’t forget all the cleaning supplies that are lying around in trolleys in the airport. Any decent chemist should be able to make a range of really nasty things from that.
To be fair the disconnect is partly due to the government ratcheting up the tension and changing the restrictions all the time. If liquids are restricted it gives the impression that it must be for a good reason and it must have a effect. The effect of airport security has changed from being a reassurance to being the a nuisance and make peoples fears worse, with no real change in the effectiveness.
There’s also the fact that people don’t really understand how vanishingly small the chance of being caught in an attack is and overestimate the risks. For people already nervous of flying, or who don’t fly much, you can see why they worry about these things.
You should start the thread though, I’ve often thought about doing something similar to try and show how much of an ‘act’ security is. We really do need an open dialogue about what is possible without people shrieking about us assisting the terrorists.
Paging McGyver!!!
no,none of the aforementioned.You completely missed the point of that post, which was that he just “gave” the terrorists not one, but THREE, ideas.
IOW, you’re being silly.
i beleive if you will re-read my original post you will see that i am not asking if what i feel is a unsafe condition is real or not, what i am asking is to whom i report it. if you will read my following replies you will note thta i have taken the advice of several other posters and tried to inform both the f.b.i. and the t.s.a.
i got no, repeat no answer when i called the t.s.a., and when talking to the f.b.i., agent he was very terse in his replies, and i feel this situation is important enough to at least have a more through interview and at least be told "thank you .sir ,for your concern for the safety of the american flying public." not be blown off like some pre-schooler who thinks they see a boogeyman under the bed.
nadahappycamperYes, I can read, thank you. We all get that. However, what I and several others have asked–and repeatedly–is that you tell us what you think the problem is, so that someone who understands these things (such as our commercial pilot members) can tell you if your fear is realistic or not. If the FBI doesn’t appear to be taking your issue seriously, that ought to tell you something.
The thing that pisses me off is that everyone seems to forget is that 9/11 is at least two steps removed from weapons on planes. Al Qaeda wanted to blow up some major U.S. landmarks. They tried to blow up one of the World Trade Centers before with a truck bomb but it failed. They had to pick another mechanism and the one they chose happened to be airliners this time. They didn’t care about hijacking airliners or blowing them up. They were a means to another end and it could have been any number of things. They also didn’t worry about any real weapons.
They knew about a security and psychological exploit in which any perceived hijacking threat would meet no resistance from the flight crew. The pilots simply handed over the planes as soon as the slightest threat was presented. The failure was just an exploitation of a procedure that dated back to the 60’s and 70’s when peaceful hijackings to Cuba and elsewhere were common. There weren’t any outlawed weapons used and anyone could walk in with boxcutters or Swiss Army Knives onto their plane up until that day. They simply beat the system at its own game and there are plenty of other exploits out there for people that are so minded that don’t have anything to do with razor blades, airplanes, or hair gel. They were the equivalent of hackers and they did a good job. It isn’t wise to focus on one strategy your opponent has used in the past. You have to look at the entire problem and see what might come next instead of getting tunnel vision and devoting all your resources to doing nothing but inconvieniencing millions of people just to keep up the illusion you have built.
. . . Because someone has identified a hole in what I call the “Swiss Cheese Theory.” If you take a look at every airline, train, automobile disater (take whatever system you want), there are a string of single events that in and of themselves can’t cause a disaster, but when combined with others can. . .
Line up the small discrepancies, and you have a failure waiting to happen: the landing gear won’t come down, the fuel won’t dump, and the airport’s ILS ain’t working perfectly. Sure as sh*t, these things will line up to be a problem. Want a cite? I can only point to all of the major airline disasters (Tenerife comes to mind) where one single piece of the puzzle puts that hole in the cheese.
Anyway, you put enough holes (read: ‘errors in the system’) in the cheese that line up, somethin’ bad is gonna happen.
Tripler
Let her call in a hole in the cheese. If for naught, it’ll turn out to be cheddar.
I think the main problem here is Nada thinks his idea is just so great. If you know about it terrorists know about it. You took a flight and just happened to see it. Terrorists work all day on things like this, it is bassicly there job, only its not 9-5. The FBI and TSA probably didnt take you serious because they either already know about it or there is nothing that they can do. Security has not even improved after 9/11, just the display of it has.
If it’s about them opening the cockpit door to get a meal or go to the bathroom, it’s not a secret. I was just listening to a lengthy discussion of this on a podcast, possibly of a radio show. I think they said that planes in Israel have bathrooms in the cockpit.