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Question, will aircraft ever be hijacked again?

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chperplt said:
Will there ever be another stupid question posted on Flight Info?? The answers are one in the same...
I think you need to go a little more easy on Unanswered. Check out the guys total time on his profile. He's just a fledgling student pilot who has a lot of the same curiosities and questions that we all had when we were doing our primary training.

This is what this board is about, asking questions, getting answers, and sharing opinions. I find Unanswered's questions refreshing amongst all the other threads of bickering and complaining. So help the brutha out...

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Now for my two cents on the topic...

As long as there is commercial aviation, there will continue to be hijackings. Always have been, always will be.

Now do I feel that there will be another U.S. airline hijacking. That ones not so easy to say - I would like to hope not. And I'd sure hate to be the guy that tried to pull that one off. People post-911 aren't going to stand for that, and that individual will get the royal beat down of his soon-to-end life! Even a group of terrorist would be at great odds against a plane full of passengers not ready to let them takeover as easy as they did Sept. 11th.

My opinion is that terrorists are going to either go back to bombing airplanes (slipping explosives in luggage, or carry-ons) or get out of the airline business all together. We've spent way too much effort "securing" our airplanes, and not paid near enough attention to other areas that are far more vulnerable. Terrorist already did the airplane thing, and these guys aren't stupid, and I don't think they'd risk pulling another 911 off again using airliners.

If they stay in the commercial aviation business, we'll probably be looking at random bomb attacks, similiar to what filled the 70's and 80's. That to me would be more scary. Its easy to profile people, and to note suspicious people. It's another thing to have to wonder if everytime you've stepped on a commercial plane, there might be a block of explosives in the baggage compartment that will be completely undetectable.
 
Thinking about 9/11, it initially occurred to me as strange, that 2 pilots and literally dozens and dozens of passengers were overtaken by just a few terrorists.

It's not a stupid question. Prior to 9/11/2001 many airlines (I don't know about the specific ones involved in 9/11) advised pilots to cooperate with hijackers.

Most hijacks prior to the 9/11 events ended with most of the passengers being released. I think most aviation professionals would have considered it to be more risky to fight a hijacker than to just take him where he wants to go.

Someone will someday try and hijack an airliner again, but there is no way a coordinated effort to hijack four or five airplanes could possibily work in the U.S. again.
 
JimNtexas said:
Most hijacks prior to the 9/11 events ended with most of the passengers being released. I think most aviation professionals would have considered it to be more risky to fight a hijacker than to just take him where he wants to go.
I was also watching a special on Flight 11 on the History Channel the other day while killing a few hours at an FBO.

They addressed the issues of the cockpit takeover, and why there was a lack of fight on the flight crews part rather simply. The two pilots would've still been strapped pretty snug in their seats by their lapbelts and possibly their shoulder harnesses. A quick rush of the cockpit by multiple men as they did, allowed the pilots no time, and very little mobility to actually ward off their attackers before they incapacitated the flight crew - by means of slitting their throats.

Makes logical sense when you hear it laid out like that. The terrorist didn't exactly stroll into the cockpit and stroll over to the pilot and made their demands known. They rushed in, immediately took control of the situation, and the pilots were helpless to do much else.
 
User997 said:
A quick rush of the cockpit by multiple men as they did, allowed the pilots no time, and very little mobility to actually ward off their attackers before they incapacitated the flight crew - by means of slitting their throats.

I wasn't aware of that. I guess at the point it would've made little difference if the pax had taken control of the terrorists, because they would next have to take control of the aircraft. (A little more tricky). Of course, maybe even at that, the plane would've crashed in a feild somewhere, as flight 93 did, instead of reaching a major city and causing widespread death and destruction.
 
UnAnswerd said:
Thinking about 9/11, it initially occurred to me as strange, that 2 pilots and literally dozens and dozens of passengers were overtaken by just a few terrorists. How could this happen???
Think about the mentality of the general public...

  • "The government is here to protect us"
  • "it only happens to people on television"
  • "hijackers would never use an airliner in a suicide mission"
  • "I don't want to get involved"
  • "The stewardess will do something about it"
  • "it's not my job, somebody write a nastygram to management"
  • "God will save us from evil"
  • "duhhhhh, what should I do, I'm just one person?"
  • "that's strange, he never has a second cup of coffee at home"
 
I pretty much agree that there will not be another attack in the style of the events of September 11th (I don't like the catch-all term "9/11", I think it's degrading to the scale of the event and the people involved). But never say never.

However, the measures and, the importantly, the mentality are in place to help prevent such a thing from happening again. But, as we are all aware I'm sure, there are gaps. In commercial and general aviation, and even more so in other segments of our society, there are still gaps that I'm sure the bad guys will try to exploit. Never forget what happened, always be suspicious, and don't worry about hurting anyone's feelings (ie, I'm all for profiling).

And I don't think it's a stupid question all at. Regardless of the original poster's background or experience, it's a perfectly legitimate question deserving discussion (even if it probably has been been discussed ad nauseum in the last couple of years), so long as the discussion doesn't of course reveal any information not appropriate for a public forum.
 
91 said:
so long as the discussion doesn't of course reveal any information not appropriate for a public forum.
You mean like the TSA agent that made comments to a female Mesaba Pilot in front of her and her fiance regarding undergarnments she had in her roll on? Nahhh, it would never be approriate to discuss that. Plus, that's old news...just like 9/11.
 
chperplt said:
I DIDN'T SAY THE QUESTION WAS STUPID...

YES YOU SO DID CHPERPLT YOU FREAKING MORON LOSER WHY THE [BLEEP] DID YOU [BLEEP] [BLEEP] THE GUY'S [BLEEPING] QUESTION WITH YOUR [BLEEPITY BLEEP] WISECRACK NINCOMPOOPNESS!!!??

I'm kidding.

We should change www.flightinfo.com to www.fightlikelittlechildren.org and put all the airplane stuff in the "non-fight-related chat" forum.

Let's go easy on UnAnswerd, a lot of his questions are..... yet unanswered.

My take on the terrorism stuff is this:

Let 'em come (not to be confused with "bring it on"....). Our priority should be making sure that America remains America-- so that what they destroy, when they destroy it, is still worth destroying. I'm not worried about America's downfall from the outside in, because we have more resolve than they have gunpowder. Let's just make sure that we don't destroy ourselves from the inside out.
 
My dad carried a snub nosed Smith and Wesson loaded with wad cutters in his flight bag right up until he retired at Continental after 35 years. He was never highjacked.A hand gun loaded with bird shot (that won't penetrate the hull) is better than nothing!
 

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