LondonElite

They're there for show. It looks tough.

Tchiowa

Exactly. If the plane doesn't land when directed to land and appear to be headed for a populated area, they shoot it down. Pre-9/11 we would never do that. The world has changed.

abmj-jr

Who would they sue? Not the federal government or its officers, who have sovereign immunity. I suppose they could try to sue the airline for allowing the threat to occur on-board in the first place. That doesn't really seem like a case that would be likely to succeed but you never know. Juries can be stupid at times as illustrated by that ridiculous suicide-by-tobacco award referenced above. Expect that one to be chopped back to something reasonable when it gets to appeal.

Jeannietx

I had read this earlier, it had to be absolutely terrifying for all of the other passengers on the plane. I wondered, could they have done this a little less rambo style?

skibum85

Haven't you seen Executive Decision?

tjl

Fighters can do things other than shoot down other planes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...99/crash26.htm

pragakhan

I was surprised by that decision especially this far after the MSA.

Ocn Vw 1K

As this thread raises key issues of airline security, please follow the thread to the apt Travel Security forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Jalinth

The concept of sovereign immunity would be brought into play right away. Basically, the government can't be sued for monetary damages unless it allows itself to be sued (some limited exceptions have been carved off by the courts of different countries but most Western countries have this concept).

LondonElite

This won't happen. Real life is not Hollywood!

lloydah

One would hope that the decision would be to try and save all lives as far as possible not choose "foreign nationals" over "american lives". And what about if the aircraft had US citizens on board? Would that just make the choice harder? I just don't get that belonging to one particular nation makes you more valuable.

Badenoch

It took the U.S. government 8 years to finally compensate the victims of Iran Air 655 and only compensated after Iran took the matter to the International Court. The U.S. has never formally apologized but saw fit to award medals to the killers of 290 people including 66 children.

A plane full of Canadians? The U.S. government would send us down in flames with high fives all round if they thought there was the slightest chance Americans on the ground might be harmed.

petaluma1

Don't you know that this country and its citizens are "exceptional?" /sarcasm

HMO

States might be excepted in cases of war or terrorism, but if not, not everybody will be able to afford and wait a long and potentially painfull trial. Most of them will settle for a very (in terms) lower amount.

FlyingHoustonian

That issue is a tad more complicated. The US also wanted to insure the money went to the families and not into the pockets of the Iranian regime. It took several years to make that happen....but I digress.

Having conducted many, of these exact things in both North America and Europe over the years, there are scores of options and scenarios involved too numerours (and often classified) to list here, but both NATO and NORAD have multiple options that having a fighter intercept happen provide. As for "wasting money" the budget money is already there. These happen often on military targets, normally Russian Bear and Blackjack bombers; the way funding works you would not save money by not having a single intercept.

As an aside to the poster earlier NORAD does not have swat teams. Once the plane hit the ground it was handed off to local LEOs.