Today made us all sick to our stomaches and ache in our hearts. Clearly there will be changes in our air infrastructure resulting from today's events.

What can be done to minimize the risk of anything like this ever happening again? What inconveniences or changes to flying are we willing to accept as a trade-off?

Perhaps secured cockpits would have made this less likely. The flimsy doors in place now are no barrier to entry.

yes, secured cockpit with bullet proof door

Lets understand a few things. All the questions and scans and body searches can not stop everything. I do not know what they used, but a plastic knife can stab and hurt people. Prisoners have learned that in prison using much less than most of us have in our shaving kits. As to the secured cockpit, would a pilot open it if they had already killed one FA and threatened to kill another, and another? Probably.

There is not easy answer. But, I am afraid we will over react. No parking near a terminal. No stopping. Long, long lines. Refusal to carry on certain items. Missed flights. And would ANY of this have stopped today's acts?

The pax load levels on those flights were very low (see thread in "In the News" forum). Perhaps the terrorists bought a bunch of ghost tickets to fill the planes up so they'd have fewer live pax around to thwart their efforts. So one solution may be to cancel any flight with a HUGE numbers of no-shows. Yes, this would probably affect many flights where no sabotage is intended. But there shouldn't have been many "legit" no-shows on these flights -- they were among the first flights of the day, so missed cxns would have been unlikely.

Disclaimer: Just a theory; I know nothing.

I'm with you, frequent freak. The low pax count was a red flag in my mind. I too thought about the ghost ticket scenario...made all the easier these days with e-tickets and self-service check-in. With an e-ticket, you don't really need a physical address to buy a ticket (unlike the old days with paper tix) so you could buy bunches and not show.

You would think that someone would have noticed the large # of no shows for first flight of the day, no connection cities in clear beautiful weather. So I hope this doesn't turn out to be accurate.

Frequent Freak the loads were light because it is a Tuesday. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday have the lowest load factors and that's why the flights tend to be cheaper.

The hijackers did not care about the people on board. They crashed into two the the most occupied buildings in the world. If one commits suicide they don't care about themselves let alone others.

This subject came up on my flight to Toronto last week. I was chatting with the F FA (28 years at UA!) when another FA entered the cockpit. I joked with the F FA saying "Gee, don't they ever change that "secret" knock? Tap...tap tap. Anyone who's travelled in F or used an F lavatory knows that knock.

She said that yes, starting the 1st of 2002 UA was gong to implement a new, rotating set of knocks because of "increased security concerns."

Too late, I guess.

RAD

Beyond the obvious need to make the cockpit as secure as possible, the next step to consider is biometric identification, cross-linked to a number of databases (including FBI, CIA, Interpol and the like).

It will always remain extremely difficult to stop someone who is willing to commit suicide in the act, but there has to be greater efforts to keep possible threats off of planes.

Also, I would question the level of security one should reasonably expect to be provided by people who are paid minimum wages (or two-three times the minimum). Another step is to alter the way passenger (and aircraft crew) security is conducted by replacing these workers with individuals in police or military organizations.

Personally, as a citizen of a usually successful democracy, I don't like any of my ideas, but current circumstances imply that our transportation system needs serious change.

A secured cockpit could work if the pilots were trained to NOT open the door. One FA killed is certainly less carnage than what happened today. Bathroom breaks and the like would have to be considered; maybe a double door system. I can think of several other incidents where a secure cockpit would have prevented ultimate tragedy, including a PSA flight where a lunatic brought down the whole plane.

Nope. The truth is that it is very hard, perhaps impossible, to stop someone on a suicide mission. The only comfort is that there presumably aren't that many people willing to do such a thing, and there are fewer today than there were yesterday...

More likely, we will see things that look tough but accomplish little, as usual. For example, the Sec. of Transportation announced that curbside luggage check-in will no longer be allowed. I imagine the various electronic check-in systems could disappear. Security will be more intrusive if not effective -- unless the pay scale changes dramatically, that person monitoring the x-ray machine will still be someone who couldn't quite cut it in the fast food industry (not as if that matters, anyway, cf. the EgyptAir crash where no weapons of any kind were involved).

There are no easy answers. Unfortunately, we love easy answers, and we will quickly find them.

1) Cockpit Access:
I agree that better secured cockpits are a key component. Perhaps cockpits that cannot be opened from inside (would have to add an emergency exit). Access that could only be opened using an internal release PLUS a control on the outside of the airframe. They would still need an emergency exit through a window, but no cabin access without ground crew.

You could also build a cockpit with a separate door. They could use stair access or eventually new jetways.

This gets more difficult for international flights with relief crews, but just require a reconfig.

2) Turn up the metal detectors.
If delays are added, you can bet the airports will come up with a way to reduce them. Some airport came up with the idea of having a second detector for people who set off the first one. It keeps traffic moving, while they get rescanned. Some airport will come up with a way to handle this.

3) Increase the air marhall program.
Or put some sort of armed security on more flights. This will probably be a relief to airlines anyway who are more and more worried about Air Rage incidents.

Now this is tough to do quickly, because it's 10's of thousands of people to hire, but it's a good long term solution. It will increase PFC's, taxes, or fares to some extent, depending on who pays, but not to an outrageous degree.

[This message has been edited by robb (edited 09-11-2001).]

What does El-Al do that makes them terrorist-proof?

Installing closed-circuit TV would be helpful, so the pilot and co-pilot could see what was happening outside the cockpit door. And, they should not hesitate to put the plane into a roll to knock any bad guys off their feet.

If the pilots and co-pilots in today's incidents had been armed with handguns, the highjackings might have been aborted. Of course, that strategy has its own risks.

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Middle_Seat

Of course, as we saw today, a Boeing 767 is a far more powerful weapon than a Glock 9mm.