re: 9/11 ticket agent is haunted by guilt

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I still say there is no way I'm letting someone hijack a plane with a box cutter. Kill a few but you're never getting a plane again

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I've wondered how this happened. There had to be some threat of a bomb detonating if anybody tried anything. Or maybe they just thought the plane would land somewhere and ransom would be paid

This is before running airplanes into things was a thing. If I'm not mistaken, numerous aircraft had been hijacked in the decades prior and the high jacker always made some demand (cash or release of prisoners etc) and landed the plane when the authorities agreed.

I assume that's what people on the aircraft thought and they assumed it'd be safer to just let the hostage / payment scenario play out like it always had.

No way they knew the hijackers were about to fly them into something.

Ever see the film United 93? It goes off the premise that the passengers had heard what happened to the other hijacked planes and figured the same was about to happen to them, so they did action.

It's easy to say to stop them now in post 9/11 eyes, but that's not how it was before 9/11.

They had the jump on us, it wasn't something you looked out for and had a plan in your head to even attempt to stop them.

They used a mixture of threatening to blow up the plane with bombs that didn't exist and quick actions to subdue certain people on board with the box cutters. We just weren't prepared for that in that era.

quote:

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I still say there is no way I'm letting someone hijack a plane with a box cutter. Kill a few but you're never getting a plane again.

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Until that day no hijackers had ever used the plane as a suicide bombing weapon.

They protocol was to just stand down and let the hijackers take the plane where they wanted to go and negotiate as hijacking were typically for political statement and leverage in a larger negotiating goal.

They'd blow a plane up if bringing a bird down was the goal. The guys that took the plane down in PA figured out what the plan was by calling family members and being told of the other planes.

Nowadays, good fricking luck hijacking an American plane. I don't think there's an able bodied American, man, woman or teenager that would just sit down and be a victim without attempting to overwhelm the hijacker. If 12 of you rush after him in a small space a couple will get injured, possibly killed but he's not going to be able to fend off everyone.

my guess is that he knew in his gut that they were terrorists. however in this politically correct culture of ours, he did nothing.

What about the ground crew that fueled the plane? Did they feel guilty?

Did the pilot's union ever apologize?

Where will this stop?