Item — HN Reader

> "Never again will a terrorist be able to breach the cockpit simply with a box cutter or a knife. The cockpit doors have been reinforced, and passengers, flight crews and air marshals would intervene."

I fail to understand this. How would the passengers and flight crews intervene against armed (with knife) assailants?

4 comments

Simply push 100 people up the aisle? Sure, the first one or two might get knifed, but attackers couldn't possibly withstand the crush.

The 9/11 hijackings relied on the fact that a "hijacking" was considered to be something like being diverted to Canada/Mexico/Cuba and then being let go. Annoying, but no point in putting your life at risk.

Once the knowledge that the hijackers were doing a suicide run got out the people no longer sat still (see Flight 93).

6 people can't possibly stop all 100 people in the confined space of an airplane with mere knives.

"Are you guys ready? Okay. Let's roll!"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Beamer

Just like how the seat cushion doubles as a flotation maybe arm rests should dispense 8 in knifes. Not much advantage to sneaking a weapon on a plane if everyone else has one too.

Oh yes, we don't want violence on the plane so just give everyone weapons

Frankly this is the asinine US view which results in so many shootings because there are just so many guns floating around basically unrestricted

We could Home Alone it instead!

Trip wire between the seats. Instead of those oxygen masks it's a hammer that swings down. Hot iron on the bathroom pull handle.

Those guys were REAL heros.

It’s a simple risk analysis. Assuming the hijackers intend to crash the plane, you have nothing to lose by fighting back.

That equation was never in place prior to the attacks, there were official scenarios that suggested this tactic, but passengers and crew would have been correctly expecting another hijack with detour to Cuba or something

Correct — this is why 9/11 was possible then and impossible now, TSA or no TSA. Source: I’ve traveled on airplanes with some frequency between 1980 and now.

>9/11 was possible then and impossible now

pfft, now you have hardened cockpit doors that’ll keep you safe if you manage to SE your way into the cockpit (which at least on long haul flights departing from europe hasn’t been super hard IME)

A terror group could just have one of their operatives blow a million dollars on first class flights to achieve some VVIP-status like BA executive premier, then it suddenly becomes really easy to ask for things like seeing the cockpit during takeoff.

Or you could just charter a few large private jets, there wouldn’t be any other passengers to fuck you over and you’d be in charge of the fligut route.

I guess they’d shoot you down faster these days, but to mitigate that you’d just need to depart from a city airport and make sure they let you in the cockpit early on.

I’m absolutely sure there could be a new (single-aircraft) 9/11, and it wouldn’t even be particularly difficult to execute by a group of people that isn’t already under heavy government surveillance.

Find something longer than their knife so they are out of reach and start beating the shit out of them with it? Knives aren't very threatening unless they are extremely close, and most knives can't be thrown because they don't have the right balance. Dealing with knives is trivial compared to a gun.

Machetes on the other hand, that might suck