Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
They also could have done what Israel did decades ago....strengthen the cockpit doors. The hijackers may have killed some passengers but they wouldn't have been able to take over the planes. But I suppose the airline bean counters wanted to save a few bucks.
....
With all the hijackings around the world during the 70's and 80's nearly every international airport tightened up security, Except the US. I remember all the security checks I went through in Europe back then. Yet in the US, every airline except for the Israeli ones, I could jump out of a car and be boarding a plane within minutes after checking in. The US gov't was so naive back then and wastes so much time now just to be PC.
The thing was hopelessly blown out of proportion. The USA loses a lot more people to automobile accidents etc than to the terrorists. The terrorist took advantage of a shortcoming in US security and scored. The rational answer is ignore all that, make sure they can't do it again and proceed.
We screwed up continuously afterwards. Shut down US airways. Startted TSA. Invaded Iraq. Piled idiocy on idiocy.
I personally was more concerned about the DC10 that lost an engine and crashed in Chicago. That was a plane I flew once every other week for a long period.
After the plane in PA the terrorist strategy was defeated. We would no longer let anyone take over an airplane with box cutters and chutzpah. Even today I would waddle down the aisle to provide protection to my more able fellows. But they are not going to take the cockpit without significant weapons.
The terrorists are off trying to think up something similar. Our task is to make it tough...but not to change our system or views to prevent it. F#ck em. And then beat them with big sticks.
The TSA was created because of 911 and fear. And they suck. I won't fly anymore because of them. And securing borders don't mean anything. US citizens have become terrorists.
Personally I think the TSA is a visual bandaid, simply to, at the time, help make people feel safe.
Just like comapnies, who outsource security guards, who are not armed....a visual bandaid
Made it a little past the walkway and saw a big flash in the sky. Made a U-turn, headed back to the tunnel and back to Brooklyn.
Smart move. Took me all day to get to my home in NJ. Thought I would keep walking and go over the GWB. Ran into a friend in midtown from the 82nd floor of One who I'd thought was probably dead, and we walked to the river. She lives in Ammann now.
Bizarrely, I got across the river on The Circle Line. A kitschy tour boat.
Smart move. Took me all day to get to my home in NJ. Thought I would keep walking and go over the GWB. Ran into a friend in midtown from the 82nd floor of One who I'd thought was probably dead, and we walked to the river. She lives in Ammann now.
Bizarrely, I got across the river on The Circle Line. A kitschy tour boat.
I flew into JFK that morning and rented a car (Back then it was cheaper to fly then get a hotel room). I got off the highway in Bay Ridge, listened to the radio, made a few phone calls without getting answers, headed for the VZ to SI, left the state and drove south back to my home in VA. The next day was sort of funny when I took the car back to the VA rental agency and the kid behind the counter started ripping into me about the the car not being allowed to leave the NY metro area and that there would be a surcharge. I looked at the kid and basically stated "You do know what happened in NYC yesterday and all the airports were closed down. How the fark do you think I was going to get back to VA, farking walk?"
First day planes were allowed back into the air, I was on one of first flights to fly into JFK that morning. It was a very strange day to say the least.
Circle line? I knew the one downtown pretty well as when relatives came to town when I lived in NY, I would take them there for the tour around Manhattan and the tour to the Statue of Liberty.
I was in the office, my manager's wife called me and stated, "Creme, a plane flew into the twin towers!" I remember standing there asking her questions, but felt numb...she kept answering my questions, stating that it was all over TV...."How could that happen, how could a jet fly into the twin towers?" Still not quite capable of believing what I was hearing.
then she screamed, OMG, another plane just flew into the other tower....all of a sudden, it clicked, and we knew it was a terrorist attack.
I ran around to my teams, telling them what was going on, and we all decided to walk down to one of the conference rooms and Turn on the TV.
You could hear a pin drop in the building....and in the conf. room, the feeling was surreal...
That day will never be forgotten by us....we lived it, and it was in fact real.....
I flew into JFK that morning and rented a car (Back then it was cheaper to fly then get a hotel room). I got off the highway in Bay Ridge, listened to the radio, made a few phone calls without getting answers, headed for the VZ to SI, left the state and drove south back to my home in VA. The next day was sort of funny when I took the car back to the VA rental agency and the kid behind the counter started ripping into me about the the car not being allowed to leave the NY metro area and that there would be a surcharge. I looked at the kid and basically stated "You do know what happened in NYC yesterday and all the airports were closed down. How the fark do you think I was going to get back to VA, farking walk?"
First day planes were allowed back into the air, I was on one of first flights to fly into JFK that morning. It was a very strange day to say the least.
Circle line? I knew the one downtown pretty well as when relatives came to town when I lived in NY, I would take them there for the tour around Manhattan and the tour to the Statue of Liberty.
Yes, that's it. It picked us up that day somewhere closer to midtown. Don't know if it still runs.
I took a train back to the city a week later for a doctor's appointment. Went as close as I could to the site. Went back to work in Jersey City two weeks later, and we had people working on the site who would come back and tell us what was going on and who or what parts of who that we knew had been found. When the wind shifted ash would fall on us.
Had a friend from work in the burn unit at Cornell. She was caught in the fireball in the lobby. Looked for a while as if she might make it but she suddenly went into cardiac arrest and died near the end of October. I just got up from my desk that day and walked out and went home when we learned she'd died. No one questioned it. That's how we were in those days, trying to do our jobs and reconstruct our office while all this swirled around us. We thought we were functioning OK but later looking back, we were in bizarro world.
One day someone from the facility management shut off the lights to see which switches controlled what. We were 14 people crammed into someone else's file room. You never saw 14 people leap over desks and out the door so fast just because the lights went out. The building people apologized profusely. We were on the edge.
Smart move. Took me all day to get to my home in NJ. Thought I would keep walking and go over the GWB. Ran into a friend in midtown from the 82nd floor of One who I'd thought was probably dead, and we walked to the river. She lives in Ammann now.
Bizarrely, I got across the river on The Circle Line. A kitschy tour boat.
I kept walking north as well, even though I lived in Brooklyn. Didn't even try to figure out how to get home until i got up to Chelsea Piers. There were boats heading into NJ from there, so perhaps id go to my aunt's in Bergen County. Ultimately I decided to keep going north...perhaps cross the East River at 59th Street into Queens and head back to south Brooklyn from there. Ended up going to my fathers shop in Midtown and took the subway back home that evening across the Manhattan Bridge.
What it would've taken to stop it is to talk about the box cutters as the planes flew without them. You don't arrest them, charge them or anything else. You just talk to them as their planes fly without them. Then you put them on 19 different flights and you don't have 9/11.
Well, I'm certain the PC thought police of 2001 would have had no problem with that plan.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
