Commercial Air Travel
I have been doing some air travel over the past week. And honestly, being on a commerical jet makes the 9/11 hijackings seem simply unreal.
It's just so hard to imagine several young Arab men being on a plane in the first place-- I can't believe that wasn't some red flag for the airlines (particularly if they were buying one-way tickets with cash). But then to have four or five Arab guys successfully take over four planes with armed with knives (or boxcutters) seems to hard to believe. It's hard to even iomagine such a thing happening in real life.
I haven't been on a 767 on my recent travels, but I was on a 757. And you can see the cockpit as you board the plane-- and man, is it small and cramped. It is very hard to see hijackers getting in there and surprising the pilots. On the other hand, the pilots don't have much room to maneuver in their seats. They seem kind of wedged in. So if the hijackers could get into the cockpit, then they could disable the pilots fairly readily, I suppose. Nonetheless, I can't see it. I can't see hijackers cutting a pilot's throat and then dragging his body ot of the seat. Wouldn't blood get all over the controls? If the hijacker's used a blunt object to try to knockout the pilots, then that seems relatively inefficient-- what if the hijacker missed? There are just all sorts of problems that make the sort of attack like what was supposed to happen on 9/11, seem unbelievable.
Even now, after 9/11, to see a hijacking occurring would be totally unreal. To some extent, you can imagine pre-9/11 how the hijackers had an element of surprise. But on the other hand, I can't imagine passengers not getting more involved in the hijackings-- even if they didn't know the planes would be used as "missiles".
The bootom line is that there is just something very wrong with the whole terrorist hijacking scenario, even if I can't exactly put my finger on it.
It's just so hard to imagine several young Arab men being on a plane in the first place-- I can't believe that wasn't some red flag for the airlines (particularly if they were buying one-way tickets with cash). But then to have four or five Arab guys successfully take over four planes with armed with knives (or boxcutters) seems to hard to believe. It's hard to even iomagine such a thing happening in real life.
I haven't been on a 767 on my recent travels, but I was on a 757. And you can see the cockpit as you board the plane-- and man, is it small and cramped. It is very hard to see hijackers getting in there and surprising the pilots. On the other hand, the pilots don't have much room to maneuver in their seats. They seem kind of wedged in. So if the hijackers could get into the cockpit, then they could disable the pilots fairly readily, I suppose. Nonetheless, I can't see it. I can't see hijackers cutting a pilot's throat and then dragging his body ot of the seat. Wouldn't blood get all over the controls? If the hijacker's used a blunt object to try to knockout the pilots, then that seems relatively inefficient-- what if the hijacker missed? There are just all sorts of problems that make the sort of attack like what was supposed to happen on 9/11, seem unbelievable.
Even now, after 9/11, to see a hijacking occurring would be totally unreal. To some extent, you can imagine pre-9/11 how the hijackers had an element of surprise. But on the other hand, I can't imagine passengers not getting more involved in the hijackings-- even if they didn't know the planes would be used as "missiles".
The bootom line is that there is just something very wrong with the whole terrorist hijacking scenario, even if I can't exactly put my finger on it.
posted by spooked at 11:03 PM
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