Man in Cargo Plane Exposes Security Gaps

Greg Moritz wrote:
According to the website in a later post,
the population density of two of these is:
Saudi Arabia 12 and United Kingdom 244 (all UK, not just England).

Do you consider this to be a relevant comparison? Where do people live in
the places you mentioned? I don't know about the percentage of people
living in dense urban areas in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are not a
lot of small 'towns' in Saudi Arabia.

Total population is Saudi Arabia 24 and England 47 (millions)

Total population in the 20 largest cities is about equal at about 15 m

We still don't know anything about the density of these cities, but you
can see that comparing overall population density is not relevant. The
population density in the places *where*people*live in Saudi Arabia
certainly appears to be greater than that in England.

I've lived in both countries so maybe I can shed a little light.

The figures are definitely deceptive in this case, as you intuit. Most of
Saudi Arabia is near-uninhabitable desert. People live along the coast and
near historical oases (or near oil wells). You can drive all day in the
desert and see one house. You can't drive 30 minutes in the UK without
seeing one, and even that requires going way up to the northern reaches of
Scotland.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu
Site remodeled 10-Sept-2003: Hundreds of new photos, easier navigation.

Meghan Powers vented spleen or mostly
mumbled...

snip-page...

I'm horrified. I agree with you.

Security experts within the FAA and US gov't (FBI, CIA, etc) should
have drafted new directives in the early 1990's for airline crews
regarding hijackings and how to deal with hijackers. The directives
being to oppose and disable hijackers using all force available and
enlist the passengers help if necessary. Cockpit doors should have
been strengthened at the same time. There was ample evidence in the
1980's and 1990's that martyrdom and suicide was a potential goal of a
domestic hijacked airliner and that there was more to gain by
disabling a hijacker rather then letting him/them take over a plane
un-opposed.

Ahhh, but you see. such studies were produced, and with many (if not more
than) of the recommendations you include. They date from the mid60s (and
in many cases come from analysis of what the Israelis were doing), but were
a continuing thread, rejected timew and time again by the old CAB and the
FAA's bureaucracy as politically and physically non-palatable to most air
travelers.

In hindsight, the FAA reaction likely had as much to do with the
bureaucrats' estimation of how their elected masters in Congress and the
Executive would react as it did with reality.

Of course (and I doubt we could ever mutually arrive there, both classic
liberals and "libertarian" conservatives finding it philosophically
unacceptable), the general conclusion of all the studies and research was
that only an exclusionary air travel policy and positive ID and clearance
such as the Israelis use - vastly expensive and theoretically
unconstitutuional - would provide the level of protection sought.

TMO


It should have been part of every pre-flight flight attendant drill,
and depicted inside every emergency pamphlet diagram to inform
passengers that it is both acceptible and necessary to subdue any
person or group of people who are using or threatening to use deadly
force to take control of a plane. Isin't it strange that such
warnings are not standard proceedure - 2 years after 9-11 ???

TMOliver wrote:

(regarding why it wasn't standard proceedure to oppose a hijacker
instead of cooperating with them)

In hindsight, the FAA reaction likely had as much to do with the
bureaucrats' estimation of how their elected masters in Congress
and the Executive would react as it did with reality.

I disagree. A policy of an air crew opposing hijackers using all
availabile force could have been brought in silently, without the
general flying public knowing about it. It's not the sort of thing
that makes front-page news.

Of course (and I doubt we could ever mutually arrive there, both
classic liberals and "libertarian" conservatives finding it
philosophically unacceptable),

A change in how flight crews deal with hijackers doesn't (didn't) need
political approval.

the general conclusion of all the studies and research was
that only an exclusionary air travel policy and positive ID
and clearance such as the Israelis use - vastly expensive and
theoretically unconstitutuional - would provide the level
of protection sought.

As has been stated here before, the proceedures used by the relatively
small number of El-Al flights can't realistically be scaled up and
implimented on all north-american domestic flights.

But I'm curious - What is El-Al's policy of dealing with hijackers in
flight (both before and after 9/11)? Is there any mention during the
pre-flight announcements of how passengers are to react or behave
during a conflict on board?

And - what does the FAA say about how a US air-crew is supposed to
deal with a hijacking? Are such instructions published or publically
available, and if so has the proceedure changed since 9-11?

"mrtravel" wrote in message
m...

Cate wrote:
I hope Homeland Security doesn't think the same way. Couldn't the events
of
September 11 be repeated with cargo planes instead of passenger planes?
Very
easily, I'd think. This guy in a crate showed how it could be done.

No, he showed us that someone could hide in a crate and get loaded onto
a plane. If the cockpit door stays closed,

If there is no cockpit door,

or the baggage compartment
makes access to the cockpit impossible,

and if it doesn't make access impossible,

then there is no way for this to
happen.

then there is a way for it to happen.

It is far easier to drive a truckload of explosive into a
crowded area.

It was presumably easier for Atta et al to do the truck thing, yet they
didn't.

Cate

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 20:10:50 GMT, mrtravel
wrote:

Jenn wrote:
In article ,
mrtravel wrote:


Peter L wrote:


He could've commandeered the plane and flew it into a tall building, or the
Whitehouse, etc.

Yeah, right.



you are unaware that a cargo jet was overpowered and crashed? using it
as a bomb is probably easier than using a commercial airliner.

Details??? Where was the person that overpowered it?
The solution is still simple...
Keep the flight crew in the cockpit...........

Dear belligerent,

I think that the detail you are missing is that cargo aircraft use
that portion of the interior that you think of as exclusively a
passenger area. They fill it with cargo, perhaps including the box
containing the unvetted passengers. So if your mental picture is of a
metal wall/floor separating the cargo from the cabin, think again.

In some cases, aircraft are reconfigured from passenger to cargo and
back, as demand suggests.

Rgds

Meghan Powers vented spleen or mostly
mumbled...



A change in how flight crews deal with hijackers doesn't (didn't) need
political approval.


If you really believe that, then I've this bridge for sale....

In both the old CAB and the FAA, "politics" were an inexclusionary element
in every matter.

Because of the nature/intent of most domestic hijackings in the early years
of the "sport", all sorts of wise psychologists and "experts" hired by the
airlines and government counseled against resistance. The non-resistance
policy became almost iconic.

Meanwhile (and obviously at a cost unacceptable to US domestic aviation),
along with placing Air marshalls aboard all international flights - and
Israeli domestic aviation is tiny - the Israelis were likely - though
quietly - training aircrew to respond, and developing an apparently
effective exclusionary policy for suspicious travelers - including pre-
flight security checks - easier in a small population, all with ID cards
and records. The US airlines and government "understood" (at the urging of
the shrinks and experts then in favor) that as soon as air crews were to be
trained to react aggressively, that the chance that a/c and lives would be
lost would increase in dramatic fashion.

Obviously, the "experts" did not understand the new crop of terrorists any
more so than they understand the sort of warm and fuzzy rewarding feeling
many sociopaths achieve when killing people. Why we have any difficulty
comprehending "educationally conditioned" sociopathy, whether it be by
Japanese troops at Nanking, Einsatzkommando in the Pale, or OBL-trained
young terrorists, yet are so quick to diagnose the same condition among
career criminals, blaming in on some unfortunate genetic laps or child
abuse coupled with lack of self esteem.

I've only known one active criminal sociopath well, and he spent his life
attempting to find a blaze of glory in which to leave it. Having known him
when he was a child (and I a bit younger), I've no problem blaming much
of his "career" on his mother who operated a pretty effective terrorist
training camp (OBL could have used her), managing to embitter the young
fellow against all his relatives, community, society and most especially
any young women he might encounter who were uncomfortable with the "lay
back and lubricate" school of sex and accepting physical abuse.

Fortunately for the world, his manifest destiny was to simply inflict pain,
and the joy at prolonging it kept him from killing folks (except by
accident, as he almost did pushing a girl friend out the passenger door at
about 40mph, but he did get to the point in latter years that his actions
when confronted by authority, especially in the midst of his trademark
clumsy crimes was to adopt a suicidally responsive profile.

Blaming the FAA, the airlines or the government for not recognizing the
nature of the current brand of terrorists as hijackers is plumb silly,
Meghan, but then plumb silliness is a quality for which you're well known
and because of such, so little regarded.

The problem's in ourselves, that we, as is normal, hesitated to believe the
worst of folks or to prepare for it (or to be willing to take the steps to
avoid it). Training aircrews or pax to "fight" the current breed of
hijackers may prevent them from achieving a portion of their goals, but is
unlikely to dissuade them from digging a crater or two in the country side
or being part of bloody "narrow escapes", but to use that as a substitute
for far more effective steps (and most of tem are not wwhat the TSA is
doing now) is blind.

Sadly, because it's philosophically and fiscally such a grim and seemingly
fruitless task, the guy you love to hate, old Dubya, probably has the best
theory, the old root and branch approach.....the fewer trained
new terrorists, less well able to communicate and discombobulated from a
traditional organizational and planning structure, the less effective
missions can they devise and execute....you may not like it, but two years
in, the "stats" lend some weight to that approach.

TMO

I'm thinking of taking a trip ...do you think I could ship the wife and kids
by cargo...?
Where can I get info on the container he used...?


"Cate" wrote in message
...
"Not the Karl Orff" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Cate" wrote:


I hope Homeland Security doesn't think the same way. Couldn't the
events
of
September 11 be repeated with cargo planes instead of passenger
planes?
Very
easily, I'd think. This guy in a crate showed how it could be done.

How would you get out of your package (assuming it's trapped underneath
other parcels, out of from the cargo container, and out of the cargo
hold (assuming you're in the bottom and not in the main deck), and to
the flight deck?

I don't know, but this guy claims he did it a couple of times during his
journey. Can't remember if he says he got out inside the plane, though.

Are there ways of transporting cargo that don't necessitate steel cargo
containers? Just loose crates in a plane?

Even if you couldn't get to the cockpit, what's to prevent you from using
your handheld GPS inside your container to determine when you're just
over,
say, Giants Stadium during a game. Detonate your smallpox-laced explosive
device or dirty bomb from inside the crate. You have no need of reaching
the
cockpit, but you could still kill thousands of people on the ground.

Ain;t that easy, I think.

As far as reaching the cockpit, I'm sure you're correct. But you can still
do damage to those not on the plane by smuggling yourself in cargo.

Cate

On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 09:11:59 -0500, TMOliver
wrote:


[...]

Sadly, because it's philosophically and fiscally such a grim and seemingly
fruitless task, the guy you love to hate, old Dubya, probably has the best
theory, the old root and branch approach.....the fewer trained
new terrorists, less well able to communicate and discombobulated from a
traditional organizational and planning structure, the less effective
missions can they devise and execute....you may not like it, but two years
in, the "stats" lend some weight to that approach.

Er...you're talking, I gather, about the ignorant puppet who -- at the
instance of his puppetmasters, Wolfowitz, Cheney, & Co,
launched an arrogant, unilateral attack on a wretched country
that was no danger to us. And about which they understood literally
NOTHING except that they needed to control the oil supply in Dollars
rather than Euros, and thought they could dominate the entire region
by force. "Bringing democracy..." What a laugh! You don't "bring"
democracy to people; it has to grow organically, over a long period.

Besides, there never *was* an "Iraq" as a country. It is a mish-mash,
cobbled together bt the British colonialists after WW I from three
diverse and mutually antagonistic provinces. With the removal of the
monster dictator Saddam who kept the lid on, all the old antagonisms
between the Muslim sects that have been killing each other for more
than 800 years, are flaring up anew. With our soldiers in harm's way.

The result of the Administration's rashness and ignorance shows up
daily in growing hatred of the U.S. by even those Iraquis who were
initially glad to be "liberated". You have very young GIs, not
well-educated, who had never been out of East Podunk, stuck with the
job of ruling people about whom they know nothing; understand nothing.
And getting zip support from the arrogant assholes back in Washington.

They justified the attack, which has cost countless Iraqui lives and
is racking up an almost daily score of American lives, by a string of
lies so blatant that even Joe/Jane Beercan will hardly be able to
avoid the proofs that are trickling down to their pop media level.
Of course there will always be True Believers who cling to the virile
image of the Man in the Flight Suit (cost to taxpayers, ~$800,000).

Result: To increase by orders of magnitude the recruitment
and training of new terrorists in the Middle East and world wide.

Meantime, domestically, the various spook agencies are STILL
not communicating openly with each other; turf wars rage on.
Same finger-pointing will ensue after the next tragedy!

I guess we must live in parallel universes!

--

Realist

TMOliver wrote in a spasm of incoherence:

(lots of pointless ramblings, punctuated by "Bush is great")

The pax on board the plane that went down in PA were considered as
heros for their "lets roll" action to do something about their
predicament. Had they been un-informed lemmings (like the people on
the other 3 planes) the US would probably be rebuilding the White
House or Capital Hill these past 2 years in addition to the Pentagon
and ground zero.

The point here is that it took civillian action and thinking for those
people to find out that they were in a no-win situation. For god's
sake, why didn't the FAA think of using the seat-back phones on the
planes they couldn't contact and use them to make contact with the pax
on those planes? Especially the second plane to hit the WTC. There
was enough time for those people to pull their own "lets roll".

Another point is that ok, fine, a whole system of specialists and
buracracy across many departments and organizations never imagined
that a 9-11 plot would or could happen in the USA, hence the air crews
AND passengers were totally not prepared for what happened.

That was then. WHAT IS NOW? Why aren't we learning from such a
horrific, terrifying, and expensive mistake? Why isin't it part of
the pre-flight cabin instructions to tell the pax to use all force
necessary to subdue a person or persons who are threatening to use
deadly force or otherwise are trying to hijack a plane? Hey, didn't
that work (more or less) on the 1 plane on 9-11 where it was tried?

Or is it better for pax to sit there like nincompoops the next time?
No you say? Well then shouldn't the PAX be told that opposition IS
THE PLAN if it happens again? Why is the FAA and the Bush admin
putting it's head in the sand on this? Where is the intelligence, the
leadership?

And if you think the Bush admin has done a good job with air travel
and air security since 9-11, read (and respond to) this you bu****e:

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/2...5/5380309s.htm

Meghan Powers vented spleen or mostly
mumbled...



And if you think the Bush admin has done a good job with air travel
and air security since 9-11, read (and respond to) this you bu****e:


One request...

Please provide number of terrorist attacks on US domestic flights since
9/11..

....but then one who believes that the FAA could have called the "airphones"
on the hijacked flights can't be expected to comprehend either fact or
logic.

I admire and would certainly urge the same sort of reponse which occurred
on the flight over PA, but as you may have noticed, different groups react
to crises in quite different fashions. Few of us, even those who have been
in situations which required or drew violent reaction, predicting how folks
will respond is less science than luck.


You are a bit thick between the ears...

TMO