MilesBuzz! - Fighter Jets Intercept Honolulu-Seattle Passenger Flight

More on this story...
http://news.airwise.com/stories/2002/02/1014210600.html

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"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

This is really silly in two ways:

1. How many telephoned bomb threats are genuine? I bet it isn't 1 in 10,000. Mayor Giuliani had the right idea last September. After evacuating Grand Central Station for the third time in one day, he said that the city simply wouldn't do that any more. The bomb threats slowed to a trickle. Obviously, no bombs were ever found.

2. What were the fighter jets supposed to do about the bomb supposedly on board? Maybe they could try to catch falling bodies after the big explosion?

The U.S. must be the laughingstock of the whole world right now.

Bruce

The fighters are not there to catch bodies. If there is a bomb on board, they are there to shoot the passenger plane down.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Jakester:
The fighters are not there to catch bodies. If there is a bomb on board, they are there to shoot the passenger plane down.</font>

Actually, that's just as silly. This is a bomb threat, not a hijack threat.

There's a big difference between letting hijackers plow the plane into a city and shooting it down.

There's no difference in effect between an exploding bomb and a fighter jet shooting down the plane.

if there is a bomb, the fighter can shoot it down over the WATER. then maybe it falls on a boat or something, but not much else. if there is a bomb, they can detonate it over land, and then you are right. honolulu to seattle doesnt involve a hell of a lot of land though...

From the story:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">The Oregon Air National Guard planes were watching to see if the plane appeared headed toward a target, much as the planes hijacked on September 11 that crashed in New York and Washington, D.C. If so, they were authorized to shoot it down.</font>

Plato: If you'll recall, the terrorists on 9/11 all initially said they had bombs and were just going to fly the planes to other airports. While certainly most bomb threats are hoaxes, I'm not sure why scrambling the jets was silly - at worst it was training practice for someone already getting paid to do this.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by letiole:
From the story:
Plato: If you'll recall, the terrorists on 9/11 all initially said they had bombs and were just going to fly the planes to other airports. While certainly most bomb threats are hoaxes, I'm not sure why scrambling the jets was silly - at worst it was training practice for someone already getting paid to do this.
</font>

A hijacking done with a threat of a bomb.

vs.

Just a bomb.

I think there's a difference. There was no sign of any hijacker on board, so the pilot was in full control of the aircraft. In what scenario does a hidden bomb lead a kamikaze attack?

Also, scrambling 2 F-15's to intercept the plane cost the Oregon Air National Guard a fair amount of money in fuel and maintenance.

Plato: The bomb threat was phoned in from the ground. How is one to know that this was not a tip that there was a bomb on board and hijackers that would identify themselves by trying to take control of the craft as they got closer to Seattle?

If I was a hijacker, I'd certainly let the pilots do all the work over the water and wait until I was near my target to take control.

There are currently flights to/from certain destinations that have F-16 escorts whether there is a threat or not. They fly about a mile behind until the flights are well away from land. You might find those silly too, but as I said, we pay the military to train and such anyway.

Had this have not been a hoax, there would have been a whole lot of people wondering why the military didn't scramble on this plane. At worst, the pilots got a training opportunity. At best, they were ready to save lots of lives had this proved to be something serious. I really don't see what the harm was in scrambling them. They spent some jet fuel ...

IF the bomb threat was real.

- and -

IF there were hijackers onboard.

- and -

IF the hijackers manage to take over the plane, crashing through the secured cockpit and keeping the entire plane full of passengers in the dark.

- and -

IF air-traffic-control didn't constantly check up on the flight to make sure the pilot remained in control after the phoned-in threat more than an hour before approaching land.

- THEN -

It might make sense to scramble fighter aircraft to escort the jet in.

The circumstances required to make the reaction a sensible one is ridiculously improbable.

But you've got your finger on the real reason fighters were scrambled.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Had this have not been a hoax, there would have been a whole lot of people wondering why the military didn't scramble on this plane. </font>

It's just a silly PR exercise, like having all those National Guardsmen who stand around the airport doing nothing.

I can see why the fighter jets have been scrambled at every possible opportunity:

Having failed miserably to predict, prevent, or even minimize the damage on September 11, our system and its individual leaders will not risk their pants being down again, no matter the cost. Planes are even scrambled for violations of the 30 minute no-standing rule.

Some people are beginning to ask how a 757 could fly from Dulles to Southern Ohio, turn around, and fly all the way back into the Pentagon without the scrambling of ANY jets.

To be fair, some were scrambled, just several minutes before impact. That flight took over an HOUR (much of which AFTER two planes had struck the WTC, while apparently our leaders were still writing the protocol for removing their thumbs from their a#@%s.

That our air travel system had absolutely no pre-arranged mechanism for responding to, and maybe intercepting the hijacked planes, is what really disappointed me last fall.

I guess I just expect too much from millions of employees having control of a total budget of $2 TRILLION.

Sure, I didnt think of it either, and I didn't write a response plan to be put in place at 8:15 or 8:30 am that day but then my job doesn't include being the head of the FAA or the CIA or being a military bigwig. Planning for September 11 fell squarely on their shoulders and they failed, with devastating conseqences.

Course, failure hasn't cost any of them their jobs. Nice to be a federal employee. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Look at it this way ... we currently pay fighter pilots to buzz little old ladies' houses in Fallon, NV for training exercises. We can continue doing that (and we do), but we can also do this sort of thing and probably get a lot better training out of it and be ready just in case.

Jakester,

You've got to be putting me on:

"If there is a bomb on board, they are there to shoot the passenger plane down."

First of all, how would they really know if there is a bomb on board, absent an explosion? The cargo hold can't be searched in flight. After the plane explodes, I guess they would know about the bomb, and then they could fire at the plane if they so desire!

Second, do really believe that the government would prefer to fire at a plane carrying a bomb, rather than take a chance that the plane might be able to land safely and the bomb be defused? Would they purposely kill hundreds of people to spare them the indignity of being killed by a bomb? Get serious!

Third, fighter planes are authorized to attack planes that have been taken over by hijackers with the intent of crashing into cities and other important places. Is any of that connected to this telephoned bomb threat? Was there any mention of hijackers or crashing?

I am thankful that those fighter planes were not under your command.

Bruce

I agree, security does not seem to make as much sense. Until the day we can board an aircraft in midair, there is really nothing the fighter jets could have done. Could you imagine the headlines, "Hawaiian Plane Shot Down Because of Bomb Threat".
Worst of all, they try to use nationalism as their excuse for overreacting.

"Our mission is to not allow another air projectile into an American city," said Major Mike Allegre, a spokesman for the Oregon Air National Guard. "If it was going to fly into something, it wouldn't be able to."


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"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

How about this scenario -

A tipster calls in the bomb threat because he has some knowledge that there's actually a bomb on the plane, or some other terrorist plot afoot.

Terrorists are waiting until the final few minutes of the flight to make their threats and take over the plane. They've been training for years to do this, just like all of the other terrorists.

Terrorists get control of the plane 5-10 minutes or less away from some Seattle landmarks or tall buildings.

Fighter jets are scambled.

Terrorists crash the plane into the target well before the fighter jets have time to be scrambled, engage the plane and destroy it. If they even get a missle off, it will either be errant and destroy something else in the busy downtown area. If somehow they got lucky and did hit the plane, it would blow up over a busy downtown Seattle, moments before impact, versus over water or a rural area if the jets were already in the sky.

d

So...? What do you propose we do about this? Shoot down the plane just in case?

Why don't we make ourselves REALLY safe and jus ban flying altogether? While we're at it, let's ban those dangerous cars, too. After a while, we could be living in the recreated 7th century world that the Taliban wanted to achieve.

Enough already.

Bruce

Dear Bruce etal: Don't blame me, I'm just the mesenger.
If you don't like the fact the F 16's are there to shoot down a passenger plane if necessary, then complain to the govt. That's why they are there.
Was there a bomb on board the 9-11 pennsylvania plane? One of the hijackers "claimed" there was. That was part of the reason they got control of that plane.

Efforts to keep everyone safe have gotten out of hand. A diabetic can't bring a syringe into a football game. Why? That person will hijack the stadium?

A person changes their mind and doesn't board a plane and wants their suitcase back. By the time the agents realize this, the Orlando-Memphis flight is almost in Memphis. What does the govt mandate? Fly back to Orlando even though that keeps the plane in the air longer.

I could go on.

If there truly were a bomb on board (with or without hijackers), then at least the F16s would be a set of eyes (and presumably cameras) to record what happened to the plane if it blew up . . . where the explosion came from, etc. Couldn't hurt to have this information.

If there was really some concern that there were hijackers on board waiting to take control of the plane at the last minute, then my suggestion would have been to direct the plane to somewhere other than Sea-Tac, perhaps PAE (Paine Field, next to the 747/777 plant in Everett) or McChord AFB or Whidbey NAS. Or if you want to get them far away from population, to MWH. This is the Moses Lake airfield (formerly Larson Air Force Base) with a 13,500' runway out in Central Washington nowhere near any population centers. Currently used a lot by Boeing for test flights.

Just thinking out loud . . .

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bdschobel:
So...? What do you propose we do about this? Shoot down the plane just in case?</font>

Well, we could ban air travel, as you suggest.

But, in the scenario I presented, if terrorists did try to take control of the plane at the last minute, the fighter jets would already be in position to shoot it down so it couldn't crash into a building.

That seems to make sense to me.

d

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Having failed miserably to predict, prevent, or even minimize the damage on September 11 ... </font>

While I'm extremely disturbed the the intelligence failure, I'm definitely in the camp that believes the damage was minimized on Sept. 11 - both by quickly ordering planes grounded and by taking military action against UA flight 93. I don't believe I'm saying anything here I'm not supposed to, but fighters trailed this plane for 40 miles and the plane's wreckage was in two areas. While I too consider the passengers on that flight to be heroic in their acts, I don't believe for a second the plane was run into the ground.

We are getting off track here. Remember that the story talked about a bomb threat that was called in from a payphone. If there were indeed confirmed terrorists on board, then by all means get the fighter jets out.

However, imagine if you were a passenger on that Honolulu-Seattle flight. Would you feel comfortable knowing that the fighter jets were there to shoot you down if the bomb didn´t go off first? An emergency landing could have been called for because the longer the flight was in air, the more chances of a passenger freaking out and putting everyone´s lives´in danger.

I understand there were some very irrate passengers in Seattle and probably a few who vowed never to step foot on a plane again.




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"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">An emergency landing could have been called for because the longer the flight was in air, the more chances of a passenger freaking out and putting everyone´s lives´in danger.</font>

Would you have suggested a water landing?

Furthermore, I find it highly unlikely the passengers knew they had fighters on their tail. As I mentioned before, there are flights to/from certain destinations that currently have fighter escorts as a rule. Passengers don't have a clue they're there. Passengers on this flight were told there was "a problem." You really think they were told, "We may have a bomb on board and there are fighters behind us right now ready to shoot us down if someone tries to hijack this plane?" The pilots that currently do get fighter escorts as a rule often don't even know they are there until they ask for something and are told they are stuck right where they are for "traffic."

What I find ridiculous is that this was much of a story and that this has generated such debate. If someone calls in a bomb threat in the current climate, F-16s are going to scramble. Big deal. That's what they're there for. They fly everyday anyway; might as well fly when there might be a chance there's a problem. If I gave you a daily list of every flight that has F-16s on their tail you might find it a little surprising.


[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 02-21-2002).]

"- THEN -

It might make sense to scramble fighter aircraft to escort the jet in."

Actually by THEN it's too late. You now have a 400mph missle headed towards the Space Needle or some other target inland.

You deploy the fighters for the same reason cops unsnap the trigger guard on their holster when leaning down in your car window and talking to you during a traffic stop.

Just. In. case.

If the plane starts bobbing, weaving, and especially not responding to FAA control calls you don't want to START reacting at that point. You want to have a preplanned series of actions ready.

Getting caught flat footed after you have WARNING of a potential problem would be absolutely inexcusable.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Plato90s:
IF the bomb threat was real.

- and -

IF there were hijackers onboard.

- and -

IF the hijackers manage to take over the plane, crashing through the secured cockpit and keeping the entire plane full of passengers in the dark.

- and -

IF air-traffic-control didn't constantly check up on the flight to make sure the pilot remained in control after the phoned-in threat more than an hour before approaching land.

- THEN -

It might make sense to scramble fighter aircraft to escort the jet in.

The circumstances required to make the reaction a sensible one is ridiculously improbable.

But you've got your finger on the real reason fighters were scrambled.

It's just a silly PR exercise, like having all those National Guardsmen who stand around the airport doing nothing.</font>


Plato -- you are absolutely right...the government needs to SHOW they are doing
something. They actually can't do anything to stop a suicide bomber on a mission -- just look at Israel if you need proof. But they can do all sorts of show things to show they are doing something.

This thread is starting to get ridiculus. But, I will agree, being that I am someone who was in one of Seattle's tallest buildings at the time of the flight, I would much rather the armed services be on the side of that plane, than that plane be in the side of my building. Furthermore, if they only did this when a hijacker was "confirmed" on board, then they wouldn't have a whole lot of practice with this, now would they? Lastly, I don't see why scrammbling jets when a someone says a bomb is on board makes the U.S. the laughingstock, it shows that the the US isn't just sitting around on thier butts waiting for things to blow up. I guarntee you, if you were on that flight, and you knew that a bomb report had been called in, whether or not it would of made any difference, I sure as heck would of felt a bit better knowing I have a F-16 fighter escort in.

"They actually can't do anything to stop a suicide bomber on a mission"

Here's a test: I encourage you to try and rush the White House grounds. Wear a bomb simulator strapped to your chest and yell about committing suicide.

In short, prove your statement that they can't stop you.

I'll bet you a dollar they do indeed stop you. I'll not cover hospitalization, or more likely burial fees or associated legal costs. :P

The point I'm trying to make is that it depends more on the target, than on the terrorists skill or ability. If you put the defense assets in place, ready to react, then you can act to stop the situation at a time of your choosing. If you don't deploy those assets in a prepartaory move you by default, give all the initiative to the attacker.

And that is a *really* bad idea.

Regards,
-Bouncer-
PS: I'd prefer you didn't actually jump the fence at the White House. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


[This message has been edited by Bouncer (edited 02-21-2002).]

mymiles2go,

I agree that people want to feel "a bit better," but how exactly does that occur? If I were on a plane and a bomb threat were called in, I would ignore it, because 99.999% of all telephoned bomb threats are just hoaxes intended to stir up confusion -- and you can't do anything about it anyway except land and inspect the plane.

But acknowledging that most people don't share my view, how comforting is it to know that an F-16 is flying alongside of you? Obviously, the F-16 can't find or defuse the bomb. The F-16 can ONLY do more harm, such as shooting down the airliner if someone gets the crazy idea that it has become a "missile." Sorry, but that's not very comforting to me. Would it be to you?

Bruce