In view of the recent tragedy in New York, it may be necessary to adopt a new protocol when dealing with plane hijacking attempts. I see little alternative to immediately attempting to subdue a hijacker without concern for their life or limb.
No repetition of the preceding day’s events will ever be needed to make me willing to quickly dispose of a hijacker if given half the chance. It is highly unlikely that I will ever be able to bring my pocket knife onboard when I fly again. Even though I would have cheerfully used it to take down a hijacker if needed.
I foresee a return of the Sky Marshalls in the immediate future. It will be necessary to maintain a high degree of security while the bin Laden organization is neutralized. Cases of “air rage” can no longer be tolerated. Traveler tantrums need to be treated as an equal threat. Such a ruse might be used to identify the on board security officer prior to the actual hijacking.
All said, there needs to be a zero tolerance policy for any disruptive behavior during a plane flight. All public travelers also need to consider the merits of involving themselves directly in any situations to come in order to help prevent a repetition of yesterday’s events. I advocate instant felony prosecution for any flight disruption. This madness needs to be addressed by one and all.
Are we, as people, now obliged to interfere with hijack attempts or feel absolved of any responsibility? What I suggest is borderline vigilanteism, but the tremendous loss of life just cannot be allowed to be repeated. People who attempt to interfere with the flight of a passenger plane should be immediately attacked by all onboard. Please show any other pertinent alternatives.
I think you’re going to find that the dynamic of hijackings have changed today, possibly forever. Whether or not we change procedures in any way.
The reason 3 people with plastic knives could take over an airplane in the first place is because the rational response to people in the face of a hijacking is to cooperate and do what the hijacker’s want. Simply because in the past, what they wanted to do was to land and make demands. So being passive was the safest course. Barbara Olson, when talking to her husband, sounded quite calm. She said, “Can you believe it? We’re being hijacked.” I’m sure she fully expected to land at an airport somewhere, and her biggest fear was probably the risk of being hurt in a commando attack.
But after today, any hijacker is going to be facing a plane full of people who think that they will die if they don’t fight back. Apparently, the people in the fourth plane realized this, and fought back. And the attack was thwarted.
This was a one-shot event, IMO. This type of attack won’t be tried again for a long time, because the chances of a repeat success are very, very remote.
There’s a saying in military circles that the military is always preparing to fight the LAST war. The same can be said for this - there’s a danger that we’ll over-focus on airline safety, and in the meantime the next attack will come by ship, or train, or car, or private plane, or missile, or by mail.
I was thinking just the same thing today. Never again will it be ‘safe’ to hijack an aircraft. I expect to hear of more aircraft crashing after beging hijacked, not because that’s what the hijacker’s wish, but because the passengers and crew fight back and in the process, loose control of the plane.
I don’t know if I would go as far as to say that this would never be tried again, but basically I think that Sam is right on the mark here. The hijackers clearly relied on the idea that people would make the calculation between fighting back and not fighting back on the basis of what past hijackings have held in store for the passengers. (And, unlike in James Bond movies, I assume they weren’t stupid enough to explain their horrible intentions.) So, they really didn’t need weapons that were all the threatening.
As I said in another thread, I think you’re absolutely right. As long as there are enough passengers left alive to overwhelm hijackers armed only with knives, the hijackers can’t have any reasonable expectation of being allowed to navigate to their target and hit it. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that it also means that the likelihood of hijackers eliminating the passengers and crew immediately is high, should they ever determine to try something similar.
How? How can terrorists wipe out an entire airplane of people while keeping the airplane in one piece and able to be flown? Machine guns won’t work, because they’ll puncture the hull. Just what can you do? Gas? That would require smuggling both gas and masks onto a plane. That’s a lot harder than a few plastic knives. And all the pilot would have to do is deploy the oxygen masks, and the passengers have protection.
Terrorists may be fanatics, but they aren’t generally stupid. There’s a concept you hear often in discussions about terrorism, and that’s the concept of a ‘soft’ target vs a ‘hard’ target. A hard target either defends itself, or is in some other way protected. Soft targets don’t. Terrorists usually focus on soft targets.
Monday, Airliners were the ultimate soft target. Today, they aren’t. So I just don’t think the terrorists will use them again, for some time. I could be wrong, and I’ve been wrong before, but I don’t think I am this time. It’s not like there aren’t alternatives if you want to destroy things. After all, the first attack on the WTC was totally different, and almost succeeded. I heard a structural engineer say that basically that attack was botched - if they had parked the truck 20 ft closer to a support pillar it might have achieved what they wanted, which was to topple one tower into the other and bring them both down without warning. If that had succeeded, the death toll would have been 10 times higher than this week’s.