Pre-flight announcement needs to include passenger intervention

In message ]
Shawn Hirn was claimed to have wrote:

In article , Fly Guy wrote:

I said this on Sept 12/2001. I said this after the shoe bomber. I said
this after the "liquid" bomb threat.

Now I'm saying it after the crotch bomber.

The single most effective deterrent to keeping the "bad guys" (tm) off
the plane is to alter the pre-flight passenger announcement along these
lines:

"Passengers are requested to inform the crew of any suspicious behavior
they see or may be called upon by crew to subdue or incapacitate persons
that are threatening the safety and security of the aircraft."

Would that have prevented this latest incident? If the guy was just
sitting at the gate waiting to board like all the other passengers, I
doubt he exhibited any unusual behavior.

As I understand it, the incident was prevented by some combination of
the crew and passengers dealing with the incident.

Millimeter or nanometer scanning might have caught the explosive, they
might not. Well, in this case they would likely have noticed something
"weird", but there are other ways to pack explosives that might not be
noticed.

So what?

At best, blowing up a plane kills a couple hundred people. Killing a
couple hundred people isn't really a challenge, and you could probably
do the same or better with a couple small shrapnel laden devices
exploding inside the line entering security.

Life isn't safe, it never will be. People need to get over it, you're
far more likely to be killed on the roads driving to or from an airport
than anything that might happen to you on the plane.

In message "Jochen Kriegerowski"
was claimed to have wrote:

Is flying really so much safer if you can only carry 100 ml toothpaste
instead of 125? Will the ziplock transparent bag where the toothpaste
tube has to be in really save the plane from exploding? No more than
a wolly hat will save me from falling bricks, one would think.

Thinking is your first problem: Stop that, and the whole process will go
much faster and easier for everyone.

In message Fly Guy was claimed
to have wrote:

A bigger question is - why blow up a plane? Unless you own stock in
companies that make security scanning equipment (or are running a gov't
black-ops project to get congress to force these body-screeners into
airports), it's not clear what exactly the allure is in blowing up a
plane.

I don't really think it's about blowing up planes, it's really more
about making people feel scared.

The moozlem idiots need to start leaving planes alone. They need to get
a clue that it's not working. And do it before air travel becomes an
absolute pain in the ass for everyone (pun intended).

Ahh, but look at the results: a dozen idiots kill a few thousand people
and everyone suffers for years. This time a single idiot didn't even
kill anyone, yet we immediately set about making our own lives
uncomfortable.

Why bother actually attacking us when the mere threat will cause us to
do worse to our collective selves?

DevilsPGD wrote:

As I understand it, the incident was prevented by some combination of
the crew and passengers dealing with the incident.

Well no.

The bomb failed to detonate.

The crew and passengers just put out the flames rising from the faulty
device.

--
William Black

"Any number under six"

The answer given by Englishman Richard Peeke when asked by the Duke of
Medina Sidonia how many Spanish sword and buckler men he could beat
single handed with a quarterstaff.

In message William Black
was claimed to have wrote:

DevilsPGD wrote:

As I understand it, the incident was prevented by some combination of
the crew and passengers dealing with the incident.

Well no.

The bomb failed to detonate.

The crew and passengers just put out the flames rising from the faulty
device.

Ahh, I though the intervention was before the perpetrator completed
setting off the bomb?

Honestly I haven't read much of the latest news, I glanced at a few that
were rehashing what was already known.

Really I'm more surprised this hasn't happened before, at the moment
screening is really aimed at looking for metal and water, not
explosives.

DevilsPGD wrote:
In message William Black
was claimed to have wrote:

DevilsPGD wrote:

As I understand it, the incident was prevented by some combination of
the crew and passengers dealing with the incident.

Well no.

The bomb failed to detonate.

The crew and passengers just put out the flames rising from the faulty
device.

Ahh, I though the intervention was before the perpetrator completed
setting off the bomb?

Honestly I haven't read much of the latest news, I glanced at a few that
were rehashing what was already known.

Really I'm more surprised this hasn't happened before, at the moment
screening is really aimed at looking for metal and water, not
explosives.

Actually it's looking for liquids in quantities necessary to make the
amount of 'binary' explosive necessary to destroy an aircraft, along
with any metal weapons...

You'd still get the old 'CIA knife' past any check-in and security desk...

http://www.selfdefenseproducts.com/C...s-p-16937.html


--
William Black

"Any number under six"

The answer given by Englishman Richard Peeke when asked by the Duke of
Medina Sidonia how many Spanish sword and buckler men he could beat
single handed with a quarterstaff.

William Black wrote:

The bomb failed to detonate.

We don't know whether the materials used were sufficient to "explode".
Perhaps this mixture was limited to the equivalent of the reaction when
you light up a match with the material quickly burning but not exploding.

But the dude will have achieved his goal of scaring politicians into
enacting even sillier restrictions. Perhaps he was really hoping that
politicians would force all passengers to undress to their underwear to
go through security.

erilar wrote:
In article , Fly Guy wrote:

The moozlem idiots need to start leaving planes alone. They need to
get a clue that it's not working. And do it before air travel
becomes an absolute pain in the ass for everyone (pun intended).

The latter has been the case for almost a decade. Now it's going to
get worse.

So it would seem that the terrorist strategy is working very well, for
minimal costs to the terrorists.

Shawn Hirn wrote:

The announcement I'm talking about would not be played at
the gate. It would be included as part of the pre-flight
crap you hear once you're already seated on the plane.

What do you read while they're giving the 'in an emergency
proceed to the exits' talk these days?

Yup. It can't hurt to have such an announcement, but I doubt
it would help enhance in-flight security. Most people don't
pay attention to the others around them on a flight; they just
sit and read, doze off, or chat with their traveling companions.

Again, you're thinking from the perspective of a non-terrorist
passenger.

Put yourself in the position of being the terrorist or someone who's
performing reconnaissance for a terrorist act. In that case, you're
paying extreme attention to everything happening around you, especially
the actions of officials you interact with, anything they say or do, and
any announcements you hear.

The last thing that a terrorist wants to hear is a directive aimed at
everyone else telling them to be on the lookout for and to subdue on
their own volition someone acting strange. As the terrorist or a
planner, you'd be second guessing yourself that the other passengers are
going to ignore or be unconcious to that directive calling for
protective action.

Terrorists are now 0 for 2 when it comes to blowing up a plane from
inside the cabin. Both attempts were foiled because of passenger
interaction and the need for privacy to covertly detonate the
explosives. Both attempts would have suceeded if the terrorists did not
have to worry or take steps to conceal their activity from the
surrounding passengers. An announcement telling passengers that it's
their responsibility to observe and take action against others will (in
the minds of the terrorists and planners) reduce the window of
opportunity to perform a successful detonation.

Remember, security screening is not so much to detect dangerous objects
and materials as it is to simply project the capability to do so, in an
effort to keep terrorists with those items from getting in line in the
first place.

Look at the step that requires you to present your ticket and ID to a
security agent when you enter the screening line. Do you know the
purpose of that step? It's to FORCE you to interact with a security
official so he can test your reaction to the encounter and to try to
evoke a stress response from you. Sometimes this encounter is forced a
second time at the screening arch.

If security screeners were really expected to come across explosive
materials during searches, they and their unions would be demanding that
they be dressed in full protective bomb gear - don'tcha think?

Don't you think that when they take those bottles of water away from
people, that they should be placed delicately in a bomb-proof recepticle
and that they should immediately be tested to see if it's a real
explosive? After all, that was the reason it was taken away from the
person - isin't it?

When every water bottle, nail-clipper and micro-sissors are taken from
people, shouldn't those people be taken away and interrogated? After
all, they were trying to carry a prohibited item onto a plane - weren't
they?

The job of being a security screener is simply not desirable from a
human-factors point of view. Normally when you look at a job or
profession, you measure job satisfaction and stress based on performance
and outcome. Doctors who perform life-saving surgery with good outcomes
are highly satisfied, they like their job, they do it well each and
every time. Same with police, fire-fighters, construction workers,
etc. When you do the job for which you've been trained and you can
stand back and get satisfaction from the outcome, that is the definition
of a proper job from a human-factors point of view.

Now look at the job of being a security screener. Your job is to detect
and confiscate dangerous materials and take dangerous people into
custody. How many screening opportunities happen each day, each year,
at your local airport, or every airport all over the world? What is the
rate at which a terrorist presents himself at a security screening
station? One in a million? One in a billion? As a security screener,
the only purpose for your existance is for that one in a million or
billion encounter. For all other screening encounters there is no
purpose for your existance at all.

How good do you think a doctor or a fire-fighter would be at their job
if perhaps they only ever performed it once in their life? How good
would fire fighters be at their job if 5 or 10 years went by without any
fires to fight? There has got to be a better system or process to board
passengers onto planes.

Let's face it. Life is full of risks. Even with this guy on
that flight, the other passengers were safer there than they
are in their own cars.

That is absolutely true. But as I say, security screening is mostly an
excercise of mental gamesmanship against would-be terrorists, and the
same can be said of adding a passenger announcement authorizing
surveilence and intervention. Except that the announcement doesn't add
airport misery to the flying public and cost the airlines millions due
to flight schedule interuptions and cancellations.

And look what else is frequently overlooked when you crowd a LOT of
people in a small space for extended periods of time - airborne and
contact contagious diseases (cold, flu, and even worse) and circulatory
problems for those that don't normally stand for so long at a time.
It's intolerable that our health is being sacrificed in the name of
security theater.

In article , Fly Guy wrote:


The last thing that a terrorist wants to hear is a directive aimed at
everyone else telling them to be on the lookout for and to subdue on
their own volition someone acting strange. As the terrorist or a
planner, you'd be second guessing yourself that the other passengers are
going to ignore or be unconcious to that directive calling for
protective action.


Doubt it. The terrorist, especially the Jihadist, is imbued with the
righteousness of their plan. God's will. They MIGHT view it a reason to
increase THEIR vigilance, but hardly a deterrent.

Terrorists are now 0 for 2 when it comes to blowing up a plane from
inside the cabin. Both attempts were foiled because of passenger
interaction and the need for privacy to covertly detonate the
explosives.
Nonsense. The attempts were foiled ONLY because the terrorists
are 0 for 2 in putting together competent ignition devices. Period.
Exclamation point. The passenger interaction on Christmas was to put out
the fire and whup on the terrorist after the fact. If the detonator had
worked, there would have been no passengers around to do anything.
The ONLY time that passengers have thwarted at terrorist attack
during flight was the one that crashed in PA during 9-11.

Both attempts would have suceeded if the terrorists did not
have to worry or take steps to conceal their activity from the
surrounding passengers. An announcement telling passengers that it's
their responsibility to observe and take action against others will (in
the minds of the terrorists and planners) reduce the window of
opportunity to perform a successful detonation.

Nope. Both were because the ignition device did not work. This would
have no additional impact on terrorists or their mindsets and would
probably mess things up by putting everyone on edge so ANYTHING even
remotely weird, to one person, is viewed as terroristic. Perhaps some
additional training of cabin crews on what to look for might help, but
pulling in a bunch of civilians and making them paranoid will not add
anything to safety.

--
To find that place where the rats don't race
and the phones don't ring at all.
If once, you've slept on an island.
Scott Kirby "If once you've slept on an island"