Chris Friesen wrote:
On 10/14/2009 04:43 PM, Rod & BJ Jacobson wrote:

As a aside simply locking the pilots
door would have specifically prevented 9/11 and that both private
and public individuals failed to anticipate such a obvious security
breach bodes poorly for prevention of all other creative future
attacks.

Up until 9/11, the normal course of action was to fly to where the
hijacker wanted to go, and then stall on the ground to give time to
put together an assault on the aircraft. There was little to be
risked by letting the hijacker into the cockpit, and the alternative
was them shooting the other passengers (aka hostages) one by one.

After 9/11 the game is different. When the hijacker might want to
turn the whole plane into a flying bomb, the other passengers have
nothing to lose by attacking the hijackers, and the pilot has nothing
to gain by letting them into the cockpit. Basically, the terrorists
ruined everything for "normal" hijackers.

And a terrorist standing in the aisle is not going to be good for much after
he has fallen the full length of a 747 cabin then had a food service cart
land on him. Airliners are not stressed for aerobatics but a skilled pilot
can nonetheless do things like that when he has nothing to lose by breaking
the airplane.