Airport No

[Twik]

Ever so slightly OT, but I hate hearing people moan in the airport and on the airplane about the 'too strict' security measures they are taking. What would you rather, they just let anybody on and the plane be blown up?! Do these people not realise that the checks are for their safety?   

In fairness to those whiners, they may not be all that happy that the new security measures since 9-11 have not stopped any terrorists or prevented any bombs getting on a plane, in spite of sending hundreds of thousands of pounds of hazardous bottled water, toothpaste, lotion, pumpkin pies and hair gel into the nation's landfills.

Well, how many bombs have you heard of that DID make it on?

[caranfin]

Ever so slightly OT, but I hate hearing people moan in the airport and on the airplane about the 'too strict' security measures they are taking. What would you rather, they just let anybody on and the plane be blown up?! Do these people not realise that the checks are for their safety?   

In fairness to those whiners, they may not be all that happy that the new security measures since 9-11 have not stopped any terrorists or prevented any bombs getting on a plane, in spite of sending hundreds of thousands of pounds of hazardous bottled water, toothpaste, lotion, pumpkin pies and hair gel into the nation's landfills.

In fact, it's now known that the liquids were never really a threat at all - this was something the terrorists-in-planning hoped to accomplish, but the technology just isn't there. Read the article I linked to earlier; it's very interesting.

[seren]

My  last trip through security, I was a 'selectee', and boy were they thorough...they even opened up the packages of rice cakes that I was carrying (which ended up crushed throughout the suitcase).

Seren

[ZipTheWonder]

Well, how many bombs have you heard of that DID make it on?

I don't believe anyone has actually fessed up to doing that.   

[Midnight Kitty]

Well, how many bombs have you heard of that DID make it on?

To be honest, it isn't the bomb's presence on the plane that bothers me as much as it blowing up.  If all the bomb did was fly with me, it wouldn't hurt me.  Just like the knife that I smuggled accidentally carried on board didn't endanger national security or the safety of anyone on the flight with me.  It just traveled harmlessly along in my purse.

To put it less flippantly, I haven't heard of any more flights highjacked by terrorists or blown up by explosive devices since 9-11.  I don't know whether that is because of the heightened security or whether no one else has seriously tried.

Some of the security measures are nonsensical and do nothing to increase our safety while seriously inconveniencing thousands (millions?) of people, wasting valuable products and creating hazardous materials disposal problems unnecessarily.  Some of the security people are snide, sarcastic, nasty, rent a cops on a power trip.  A little common sense would go a long way, but government agencies who operate in a "reactive mode" are unlikely to operate smoothly and rationally.

[caranfin]

To put it less flippantly, I haven't heard of any more flights highjacked by terrorists or blown up by explosive devices since 9-11.  I don't know whether that is because of the heightened security or whether no one else has seriously tried.

Here's the theory from the article I posted earlier:

To understand what makes these measures so absurd, we first need to revisit the morning of September 11th, and grasp exactly what it was the 19 hijackers so easily took advantage of. Conventional wisdom says the terrorists exploited a weakness in airport security by smuggling aboard box-cutters. What they actually exploited was a weakness in our mindset — a set of presumptions based on the decades-long track record of hijackings.

In years past, a takeover meant hostage negotiations and standoffs; crews were trained in the concept of “passive resistance.” All of that changed forever the instant American Airlines Flight 11 collided with the north tower. What weapons the 19 men possessed mattered little; the success of their plan relied fundamentally on the element of surprise. And in this respect, their scheme was all but guaranteed not to fail.

For several reasons — particularly the awareness of passengers and crew — just the opposite is true today. Any hijacker would face a planeload of angry and frightened people ready to fight back. Say what you want of terrorists, they cannot afford to waste time and resources on schemes with a high probability of failure. And thus the September 11th template is all but useless to potential hijackers.

Potential hijackers have lost the element of surprise and the belief that the best thing to do is to go along. In fact, they lost that shortly after the planes crashed into the towers - look at the passengers on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. Those people took less than an hour to figure out that everything they'd ever learned about hijacking was now wrong. Look at Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber." How many people, before 9/11, would have assaulted a man on a plane because he was doing something weird with his shoes? Things have changed. The next attack will be completely different.

[MurPl1]

It's not possible to give enough credit to those on Flight 93.  They figured out what was going on and understood that the paradigm had completely shifted.  To be able to respond so quickly to that information and to do so in such a self-less manner is nothing less than heroic.  And never ceases to amaze me.

[ZipTheWonder]

I think a terrorist who tried to take down a US airliner today would need dental records in order to be identified when the passengers got done with him/her/it. 

One of the greatest things those people on Flight 93 did was to empower those of us who otherwise wouldn't step on a flea. 

[MadMadge43]

It's not possible to give enough credit to those on Flight 93.

Agreed, my biggest question about the whole thing though, is how in the world did they get cell phone reception? I've never had reception on any plane once we're a certain altitude. There just aren't any towers up there.

[Twik]

You're assuming that someone would now try to "take down an airplane" by hijacking it. Using chemicals to create an explosion (or even a fire) would be possible without necessarily alerting the other passengers as to what was going on.

Consider that one of the worst losses of life on Air Canada was a fire that is believed to started when a passenger snuck a smoke in the aircraft washroom, then stuffed the not-completely-extinguished butt down the garbage chute. And that was someone not even trying to endanger the aircraft.

[Shannon]

It's not possible to give enough credit to those on Flight 93.

Agreed, my biggest question about the whole thing though, is how in the world did they get cell phone reception? I've never had reception on any plane once we're a certain altitude. There just aren't any towers up there.

How do you know you don't get reception?  Phones are supposed to be turned off while you're in the air.   

[LJM]

It's not possible to give enough credit to those on Flight 93.

Agreed, my biggest question about the whole thing though, is how in the world did they get cell phone reception? I've never had reception on any plane once we're a certain altitude. There just aren't any towers up there.

Some planes have "built in" cell-phones on the middle seat in front of you (Was it Southwest where I saw this, or American Airlines? Dunno. Wasn't Jet Blue, because they have the TV's instead). They are designed to be routed by the plane somehow, so that they don't interfere with the navigational equipment. For people that want to make phone-calls badly enough to cough up their credit card number for $3 a minuite.

A passenger on 93 dialed the operator to say that the plane had been hijacked, the operator told him about the first NY plane.

[Twik]

It's not possible to give enough credit to those on Flight 93.

Agreed, my biggest question about the whole thing though, is how in the world did they get cell phone reception? I've never had reception on any plane once we're a certain altitude. There just aren't any towers up there.

Well, considering (1) there were the installed cell phones in the seats, and (2) there are currently moves to permit regular cell phones to be used in flight, it shouldn't have been much of a problem.

When you say "you've never had reception once you're at a certain altitude", do I understand that you have been regularly trying to make cell calls in flight? Despite the fact that live cell phones are currently banned?

(I could say that I've "never had reception" in flight, but possibly the fact that my cell has been turned off and stowed per airline requirements has something to do with it.)

[mechtilde]

A lot of the "Do not leave your bag unattended" rules tend to date from a time before suicide bombing was widely used.

One of the most frequent methods in the days when the bomber wanted to walk away alive was to pack a bag or parcel with explosives. Cars were used too. There were plently of times when someone left their bag unattended and came back to find the area cordoned off and the bomb disposal squad on the way.

The fact that bombers are now willing to kill themselves does not negate the need to report unattended bags. They are still a security risk.

[Tiamet]

I lived in Northern Ireland before the cease fire.  Many of the shops had people on the doors checking handbags etc. to make sure no one was bringing in a bomb.  On the mainland (and in NI of course), there were numerous bombings.  You could go to the main shopping centre in Belfast and if there was a bomb threat, might not be able to get your car from the attached multistory carpark for 6/8 hours.

I would be very surprised if anyone in the UK would ever sit with someone else's luggage.  There are still signs up in stores telling people not to leave things unattended, although I haven't seen the signs asking to report suspicious parcels for a few years.

The UK basically had maybe 5/6 years between the end of the threat of bombs by one group and the start of the threat of bombs by another - not really time to get out of the habit of worrying about left luggage etc.