Interesting new terrorism hi-jacking tactic?

[Olys45]

I think they would be better off trying to open the emergency door in flight or something(if that is possible).

Nope not possible due to the doors opening inward and the plane being pressurized. Even if you could get the door open, most people do not know how cold it is at altitude.
When I fly on the a KC-135, I have to be carefull on where I place my drink. I have had them freeze almost solid in less than an hour before. This is with a pressurized cabin and some "heat" being on!

 

[Parker Dean]

If you believe our gov - finding that many who are willing to die is not that difficult based on the numbers proposed out of 09/11.

Which was why I found the quote from one of the recorded terrorists interesting. Apparently finding radicals that are also in a hurry to meet Allah isn't as easy as it's made out to be.

 

[ceetee]

Given the size of the aisles, location of key passengers who had the ability to stem the tide of the assault, location of the Air Marshal, and location of the bg's, it seems like it's a fairly tough scenario to speculate on with any degree of certainty.
But, the size of the aisles alone may give any willing passengers the same degree of advantage as the aggressors, which could result in a little Thermopylae in the sky that could hold out long enough to land and put thirty more heads on the pikes of CNN and Fox News.

Yes, but...

Assuming that the thirty terrs coordinate their assault, and all act on cue, en to fifteen will immediately head for the first-class area, and the open bay directly behind the cockpit. The remaining half or more will either: A) Remain covert until needed as a rear-assault force, or B) Take up positions at the bottleneck between the first-class area and coach, in order to make a first skirmish line. In this instance, we may find the good guys on the wrong side of the seige.

BTW, isn't British Airways the airline that wanted to refuse the FAM's the right to carry while aboard?

 

[22rimfire]

Every time I read post about FAMs I am amazed about all the speculation, conjecture, and absolute erroneous information out there. I love it.

If anyone really cares about this stuff I suggest reading:

49 USC ss 44903, 49 USC ss 114, 49 USC ss 46502, 49 USC ss 46505, 49 USC ss 46501, and certainly 49 USC ss 44917, there are a lot of other title 49 codes that are applicable but this is what comes to mind right now.

Cheers

M

 

[bogie]

Guys, I'm guessing this is more disinformation... The guys know they hurt the airline industry BAD. I doubt that we're going to be seeing any more improvised cruise missiles, however, because passengers won't stand for the BS...

I'm guessing that they'll hit something else. There's a LOT more targets out there that are softer than airplanes. If I could get 30 committed martyrs organized, sheesh... Be able to take down a LOT more than 300 civilians...

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Something I have found interesting from this thread, and maybe I am missing salient information here, but it seems like there is the assumption that there are one or more air marshalls that will definitely be on the plane. Is that something we can actually expect, or is this just wishful thinking? Just how many flights are air marshalls on these days?

 

[wheelgunslinger]

CeeTee

Yes, but...

Assuming that the thirty terrs coordinate their assault, and all act on cue, en to fifteen will immediately head for the first-class area, and the open bay directly behind the cockpit. The remaining half or more will either: A) Remain covert until needed as a rear-assault force, or B) Take up positions at the bottleneck between the first-class area and coach, in order to make a first skirmish line. In this instance, we may find the good guys on the wrong side of the seige.

CeeTee, that's exactly my point. My post was a bit of a daydream of what might happen in a best case scenario for the passengers. But, murphy's law and all, you could count on many would be defenders to balk at the first sight of blood, a deceased terrorist or even passenger, or to freeze altogether and do nothing. And, then, you'd be on your own if you decided to act.
Assuming that they have such a well planned assault as you described, I'd still be dead before the plane hit the ground since there's no way I'd just sit there and watch.
Though, I like the idea of the ACP strategy. It would add a whole new dimension of safety to air travel in America.
Given that the terrorists got a lot more mileage from the destruction of the twin towers than from hijacking flights, I'd be inclined to agree with the idea that there are much easier soft targets that 30 martyrs could take out. After all, we can all instantly bring to mind images of people falling from the twin towers or the bombed out front of the federal building. And, for a lot of us, the Marine barracks in Beirut isn't a forgotten image either.

 

[BHPshooter]

We're forgetting something important here: This is a British Airways flight the hijackers are proposing to attack.

Something we're also forgetting is that not all Muslims are Arabic.

There are many Muslims in Great Britain that are Anglo. Many. The racial profiling -- although effective in some ways -- won't work with Islamic radicals.

Yes, you always hope that some will resist, but look at Sept 11 -- only 1 of the 4 planes had any known resistance. Yes, it may be that they didn't have time to react, but I have my doubts about it.

Even us bold and mighty Americans don't have that great a track record when it comes to resisting aircraft hijack attempts, sadly. I still maintain hope that Americans would stand up, and at least do what the folks in PA did -- go out it true Die Hard "Yippee kay-ay" fashion... but I think any hijack attempt has a high probability of ending up messy.

Wes

 

[Crosshair]

It would probably be easier to give 30 people small bombs and send them on different flights on the same day. Good chance that several, if not most, would get through security if they did any decent amount of planing.

 

[bogie]

Guys. Lose the paradigm.

Airplanes have been hit, and are now harder targets.

If I had 30 committed martyrs, I'd have 15 sniper teams cruising around 15 major cities.

I'd have 30 drive-by shootings at 30 wal-marts.

A bunch of hijacked and utilized 18 wheelers, loaded with propane, fertilizer, etc...

I'd have a half-dozen shopping malls turned into slaughterhouses.

A dozen churches sealed and burned during services.

15-20 van/car/truck bombings per day in urban areas.

3-4 grade schools.

We're concentrating too much on what is happened, and not enough on general situational awareness. I mean, sheesh - there are people out there who think that a Cessena 182 is a viable flying bomb, able to destroy skyscrapers... And my bud's, by the time we're both in it, doesn't have weight capacity for a full tank of gas.

 

[jason10mm]

30 martyrs isn't that hard to find, but 30 who can coordinate, train, and gather IS. 30 that can all board a plane without flagging security to go on a death trip should be almost impossible. Weren't there lots of suspicions abouut the 9/11 guys in their training runs and even on the final flights? That was just 5 guys, imagine 6 times as many nervous, sweating, suspicious looking athletic guys. DEFINITELY going to make the plane nervous. No way could they get 30 gray men on one flight, and if they had such a force, they would be much better used elsewhere.

This stuff sounds like the musings of a wanna-be terrorist team. Probably could cause some damage, but nothing on the scale of 9/11.

 

[Jay Kominek]

As for the hijacking, I don't think 30 against 300 would have a chance.

On your average flight, how many of the 300 are 1) the elderly or infirm 2) children 3) too daft to figure out what is going on 4) just plain not going to raise a hand even if they can and realize they should? How many of them will have aisle seats blocking in what people are willing to resist? How many of the defenders will fight one another because they're not sure who the bad guys are? No, I think you could reach a number of terrorists such that resistance wouldn't be as effective as we'd like to imagine it would be. And I think 30 is above that number.

That said, I agree with bogie's assessment. If the terrorist planners have any sense, they'll do something besides planes. It was impressive once, but they've been made a more difficult target, and the training is long and specialized. Any of bogie's ideas require less effort and are going to get you a better victim to terrorist ratio than 10:1.

 

[Correia]

Bogie is right. If you have 30 committed, suicidal, whack jobs in one place, they would pull another Beslan.

 

[Boom-stick]

I think you may find that British Airways, don't even have Air Marshalls

Just a thought.

Boom.

 

[Cromlech]

Jeff wrote: We're forgetting something important here: This is a British Airways flight the hijackers are proposing to attack.

What do they need to intimidate the passengers and overcome the plane? Probably an uncooked piece of spaghetti is scary enough for the spineless toffs to resist.

Thank you for contributing so much to this discussion.


As has been previously stated, It is not very likely that they would try another hi-jacking, as it is quite likely that they would be found out and arrested. Then the extremists would be down by 30 dedicated 'brothers'. I think that it is more likely to be bombings and mass shootings. Maybe some kind of homemade chemical agent will be used in the future.

 

[Just_a_dude_with_a_gun]

Nothing new.

In WWII's South Pacific theatre and the Korean war, and the Iran/Iraq war, it was called "human wave".

 

[DonP]

I might be wrong here, but I think the era of passengers sitting quietly and doing as they are told by hijackers, with or without FAM's involved, ended in that field in Pennsylvania.

From 270 other passengers I'm pretty sure there would be enough people that would stand up and be counted "in extremis" to plug up the aisles and make a stand of it.

Remember how long the Spartans held a narrow defile at Thermopylae against 100,000 Persians and think of those narrow MD80 aisles. Even a handful of determined unarmed passengers could probably hold off a crowd until they set the plane down.

Then you might (or might not) have a pilot with a 1911 on the other side of that hardened door too.

 

[romma]

I'll never forget

My trip to Atlanta on the 4th of July,2002 . I was heading to a convention with a friend and that same weekend there was another convention for Pacific Rim Islamists or some such thing.. Anyhow, I try to be open minded and I am not racist but when I arrived at the boarding area, there were no less than 50 or so people that sent alarms off for me. My friend asked why I was laughing in quiet hysterics, when the pilot of the aircraft turned around and asked me personally If I didn't think there was a "disproportionate amount of folks of middle-eastern decent on board..." I kept my eyes peeled towards the cockpit ready to spring the entire flight...

 

[Boom-stick]

We're forgetting something important here: This is a British Airways flight the hijackers are proposing to attack.

What do they need to intimidate the passengers and overcome the plane? Probably an uncooked piece of spaghetti is scary enough for the spineless toffs to resist.

I'm pretty sure calling us Brits 'spineless toffs' breaches at least one of THR rules

and what you'd probably find, is that a uncooked piece of spaghetti would more than likely cause complete outrage & bring the plane down anyway

 

[30 cal slob]

30 middle eastern guys acting funny?

well, you can talk all you want, i can tell you what I would do.

i'd get off the !@#$ing plane and claim my luggage, that's what I would do.