h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was discussing HOW this had been done with a friend.

All of these were internal flights. It seems incredible to me that American Pilots would fly planes into the WTC or into the Pentagon. Therefore you need pilots. It does seem possible to me that the 4th plane was in American hands when it was crashed in Pittsburg.

I suggested that you do not actually need firearms or explosives to take control of a plane. If you know how to do it, you can kill with knives, garrottes or bare hands. (I don't know how do do any of these things).

It seemed to us you would need at least three people to take control of planes like this - so we have at least 12 suicide terrorists.

I add the some of the text of an email I received today from another friend:

> ... it was predictable, and predicted. Tom Clancy wrote a book
> about it [5 years ago] and I have been to a seminar ... where
> the precise methodology - and these targets - were outlined...

> By my reckoning this days events required a team of at least 3
> people per plane, probably more, of whom at least one had to be
> a competent pilot.

> This is for 3 reasons.

> 1] a building only 300 yards across is a dreadfully small target
> to hit at 500 knots. You need a good pilot.

> 2] desperate people do desperate things. Youd need 1 to fly the
> plane and min 2 to control - or liquidate -the passengers.
> If said passengers knew death was inevitable, a rush against the
> kidnappers would happen and succeed.

> 3] Any sane individual who had been hijacked and told to fly
> into the trade center or die...or watch passengers being shot
> one at a time until he did....would immediately fly the plane into
> the ground. I think this happened in one case. So you need your
> own pilot.

To which I will add one other comment, which is knives do not need to be made out of metal.

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***B

there was supposidly a sonic boom from the one in DC, the pilot hit in between the 1 and 2 floors, an almost impossible hit. this one was probably the best of the pilots

We can only speculate what happened inside those aircraft though and we have already established in you rhetoric thread that speculation doe not necesserily lead to the clearest thought.

Falling foul of my own polemic here - but for what it's worth, I think it to be far more likely that these started out as 'regular' hijakings "take me to XXX" and only later in the flight did one of the hijakers maybe take control of the plan in order to crash it.

I only mention this because I have heard several reports of the passengers and pilots being herded to the back of the plane at knife-point. This, I suggest would seem unlikly to have happened earlier in the hijack.

Clive - you are right about the speculation. But my hope is that this thread sticks on-topic, and (since there is not much to say about the Modus Operandum) that it will be a relatively short thread.

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***B

Would the passengers have actually known that they were about to be flown into the side of a building? I doubt the hijackers told them of their intentions over and above, "ladies and gentlemen, this plane has now been hijacked, please keep calm and remain in your seats..." (or some such words to that effect). I can't recall another situation of a civilian airliner being used as a bomb, so the passengers probably did as they were told and were expecting to have some sort of siege situation and the end of one runway or another. The last thing they would have seen would have been a rather close view of the streets of New York, not the fact that the World Trade Centre was dead ahead, therefore no rushing of the hijackers in a desperate attempt to save their lives.

'k

Hijaking airlines is nothing new. A trend of the 70's/80's saw a spate of these. Hijaking a plane and then using it as little more than a flying bomb is a very simplistic operation but todays incident as has been discussed in media venues and also on site, points to the high degree of sophistication in this terrorist attack re: the co-ordination of hijaking 4 planes and maouevering them into the terrible situations we all wittnessed today with ruthless efficiency.

the question highest in *my* mind is *why?!?!*. terrorists obviously need you to know who they are, since they are trying to get something... their message is: do what we say or we will kil more people, destroy more. if they do not come foward, they can make no demands and it is not an especially good threat. if they are for a cause, then of course they need us to know who it is they support, otherwise, what is the point? to their minds(i would speculate) we must *know* that it was done "in the name of....!" likewise if it was a show of power. which leaves us 4 alternatives that i can think of:

1)they decided they went too far. we will never discover who it was, at least not because of their taking credit.

2)they were killed in the act, either because of being too close when it happened or through poor planning, having never intended it to be a suicide mission, but "forced" to abandon their original plan and go out with a bang. which brings up the question of, "why all of them?" it could be that some still survive, but won't come foward w/o their fellow consirators. some of them might be a few of the accident victims.

3)the whole thing was an end unto itself, not a means at all. they wanted the destruction in order to:a)spread paranoia and fear b)hurt the US c)for reasons of their own, which we cannot possibly comprehend, thankfully, not being that sick and ruthless or even d)some outlandinsh James Bond-like plot. notice i put this one absolute last.

4)they will be contacting us shortly and simply have not gotten through yet for some reason. which brings the dillema: do we negotiate with terrorists?

let the paranoia and finger-pointing begin.

any thoughts on this?

and so much for staying on-topic. sorry.

Staying off topic for a moment.

IF it is this Bin Laddin (sp) bloke behind it then his group never claim responsibility for attacks, hence silence now.

Back on topic.

Hijacking four planes is no harder than hijacking one. Its just a question of personnel. All four of the flights were scheduled to leave their respective airports within a few minutes of each other. So if the message to each cell was, "don't do anything for the first 30 minutes of the flight", then all four would have been airborne and each team could do its task without fear of interference from the ground.

Also they would have known that the general policy for dealing with a hijack situation is to get the plane back on the ground and open negotiations. The Authorities probably got a message that they were dealing with a multiple hijack situation and were preparing for just such a plan. No one could have guessed what was about to happen.

Why? To my mind your point 3 is the nearest the mark.

Attacks by known groups are a form of negotiation.

However, if you are not interested in obtaining concessions from another group - then you do not need to claim responsibility for your attacks.

So what does this achieve for the terrorists? Global recession, international distrust of Bush, international distrust of the US, complete disruption of the international banking system, an undermining of the US's ability to participate in global markets, paralysis of international travel and therefore disruption to all international organisations.

The consequences of this cannot currently be imagined.

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***B

exactly. it's the one i think most likely, too.

The answer to the question 'why' is the targets themselves. The headquarters of the US military and the centre of US/world commerce.

The message was the targets.

It doesn't really matter who did it, millions would have if they could.

America should not be planning revenge but realising how wrong and how hated their bullets and dollars are, and begin to live up to their own supposed ethical standards as portrayed in their pop culture media.

They have had their 'weapons and shields' strategically hit by an enemy that demands to be heard. I can only hope, the idealism of American youth, raised on Starfleet morality, can make them listen to the cry of this seemingly doomed world.

peace
jwf

While we are examining HOW this cowardly attack has been perpetrated, you might also like to consider this.

If the cockpit of a plane was COMPLETELY sealed off from the passanger cabin, how could anyone hijack it?

so perhaps it was the pilot?

excuse me, i mean pilots. although it could have been other cabin crew....

Some reports are in from the cell phone calls people on the planes made duringtook control of the airplane with knives. Supposing that it crashed outside Pittsburgh unintendedly (it was probably headed for DC) one might hope that the pilot, having heard news of the other hijackings, sent the plane towards the ground in the hopes of preventing further disaster... and I would guess that knives were also the method use to take control of the other planes. Also presumably the people inside did not know what would happen, nor did the pilots of the first three...

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying that a pilot was involved in this attack. What I am saying is that, at present, any plane is an extremely insecure environment. Movement is allowed between the cockpit and cabin.

At the moment there is a door between the cockpit and the passenger cabin. The flight crew communicates with the cabin crew during any flight.

Remove the door. Isolate the two areas of the plane.

Well, here's all the information that I know that I haven't seen in this thread yet.

There were *at least* four planes. Two destroyed the WTC towers. One crashed into the Pentagon. And one, headed for Camp David, was run into the ground in Pennsylvania. Then there's an aberrant flight path taken by a KAL plane in Canada - haven't heard any more about that. There had to be more planned hijackings that weren't successful. Anybody that wanted to take out the World Trade Centers would surely have tried to destroy the White House. There's all sorts of financial institutions whose destruction would have meant world chaos. I think only four hijackings out of (twelve?) (fifteen?) succeeded.

The planes hijacked were deliberately chosen because of the amount of fuel they would be carrying. More fuel, larger bomb.

I believe that there will be more attacks. The perpetrators haven't shown themselves yet, but I think they haven't said all that they want to say yet.

I'm going to go home and watch the news now. Depressing, but I feel it's necessary.

Hope I wake up tomorrow!

- Lentilla

P.S. to JWF - Grr. I've already responded to that particular idea in another thread. I will say that it's reprehensible, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

I think I agree. We have to take into consideration how many attacks must have failed, how the one that crashed in western PA could have hit a building instead, and how many more there will be when we wake up. I think nobody having spoken out to take resposibility is a sign that more attacks may be on the way. I don't know if I can get to bed tonight...

Given the current state of high alert, it is doubtful that any more civilian aircraft will be commandeered and become successful lethal missiles. At least for the forseeable future.

Other possibilities include ground vehicles and 'satchel' bombs, but these are being looked for right now, I am sure.

Concern regarding bio/chem attacks has been expressed on some of the newcasts I've seen. I don't think this type of attack would be attempted, because it would dramatically increase the likelihood of a massive US retaliation against any 'hostile' nation with bio/chem technology. I think the perpetrators would fear the US would shoot first, and ask questions later.

A sophisticated, 'high concept' plan such as this requires a good deal of preparation, and many individuals would be involved. The more people involved, the greater the chance of information leakage. There is already some indication that the invesigators have obtained evidence indicating the identity of those responsible. I think they will be found out, quite soon.

If the aircraft were equipped with radar, I wonder if they would require a really good pilot to guide them into the side of such a massive structure as the World Trade towers? Apparently the aircraft targeted at the Pentagon impacted just to one side, although I suspect the intent was to score a direct hit. And the one apparently targeted at Camp David came nowhere near its target.

The comment about the aircraft passengers and crew not knowing the true intentions of the hijackers is valid. Any crew member or passenger who divined the real plan would have sacrificed themselves rather than allow the terrorists to complete their mission.

Peace

Tal