if i fight, there is a chance we survive.
if we don't, we will still die and become a human bomb ourselves.

i will fight, whether they have knife or gun

If I thought I had chance, and especially if I could communicate with another pax and coordinate it, hell yes!

I wouldn't cross my mind to just sit and watch!

RAD

Without sounding too machismo or possessing 20/20 hindsight, I would fight to my last breath. I think about this every time I fly and sit in row 1 on the aisle whenever possible.

God bless everyone affected by this outrage, especially those on the planes who may very well have put up some resistance.

Conventional wisdom in a hostage situation is to lay low and cooperate, as you are just a tool.

I don't know how I would react, but it may very well not have been clear to any of the passengers that it was fight or die.

And the problem I would face in similar situations is that same level of uncertainty.

If I do nothing do I die/live? If I fight do I die/live?

That's a tough one.. my partner and I were just discussing this. Plenty of people have walked away from hijackings, when the reasons for it are money (well, not so much anymore), and political, as hostages. And as a hostage, you are only worth something if you are alive, and the people who stay alive are the ones that keep their mouths shut.

The thing is, how would you know if the lunatic who just overpowered the flight crew has planned your death and his own for the glory of god, or is someone who is looking to exchange you for a bunch of political prisoners? Do you think there will be announcements?

My thoughts and prayers go out to all affected by this senseless tragedy. Hopefully people will retain their wits during this emotional time and a new cycle of violence will not be spawned by this barberism.

Clearly the conventional wisdom prior to these hijacking was to cooperate and let the professionals deal with the hijackers (hopefully they would land somewhere at some point) and in most cases this would have given the hostages the best chance at survival. With these attacks a new type of hijack (at least as far as I can remember) has been throw in to the equation, the hijack that is not taking hostages to get demands met or a plane to seek asylum somewhere but a hijack where the passengers are irrelvant to the hijacker and the plane is to be used as a crude bomb. Clearly if one knows that the hijacker is one of the later the obnvious thing to do would be to fight like hell. The only problem is that the hijackers are pretty unlikely to tell people what they are up to and indeed would probably tell people that they were not going to get hurt jsut so that they wouldn't have people attacking them. The prisoners dilemma basically.

A related thread:
A 19 yr old Jet Pax Attacks Cockpit door & Dies of apparent MI
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/000989.html

PS I still feel the punishment fit the crime, today more than ever!

Until today, I would assess the situation, after today, FIGHT like hell as there would be no tommorrow

I don't know how long it will take me to fully understand the magnitude of this disaster. I am still numb. Who would have thought a single plane could take out one of the tallest buildings in the world?

In any case, I think the assumption going forward now has to be that a hijacker is on a suicide mission and will use a plane as a guided missile. So, yes, I would fight back if put in such a situation. It is something new to think about whenever I fly in the front of the plane, just as I now review my responsibilities when I sit in an emergency row.

Obviously, I pray that the authorities improve aviation security so that the likelihood of such an on-board event occurring is minimized. But if it does, I would also hope that the pilots keep the cockpit secure and stay in control of the plane.

I know we would all like to be the hero and save the day, etc.. However, in reality, how we would react as a hostage or confronting a mugger with a knife, most of us would not risk our life as money and valueables are replaceable while life is not.

I suppose if attacked I would probably fight back. But taking the lead in an assault, that is just plain dumb. I confronted a mugger at an ATM once and ended up with a bloody arm. They didn't get my money, but they did take my watch. It wasn't worth it as the medical bill cost more than the watch and I was lucky no nerves were cut.

Looking back in retrospect to today's event, it would be easy to say what we would have done if on board, however we probably wouldn't know the end result of the attack. Most hijackings end peacefully.

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

The pilots were probably killed at early stage, then the planes were flied by terrorists.

There is a reason why all planes were Boeing 757-767... these terroists were probably trained to flight this model.

Why not Airbus?

The pilots were heros, they could and probably did resist.

I don't believe only knives were used, I think something more lethal was involved so the crews were killed/controlled in such short time. Eg, that flight taking off Washington.

each plane had between 3 and 5 terrorists, armed with knives or box cutters.

Sounds tough to overcome them.. maybe if you were in the back and said "ok everyone on the count 5 attack!". Probably your fellow passengers would cower sheepishly while you were cut to ribbons.

The passengers didn't know they were headed for certain death, the terrorists said "don't do anything stupid and you'll be fine" (I know this because flight 11 pilot left mike on so ground control could hear everything)

It is mostly hindsight and machismo, though. We know now that these people had nothing to lose by fighting, but the reality is that this was probably not clear at the time. Hijackings have historically not necessarily been grave life-or-death situations, and flight crews are no doubt trained to realize this and try to encourage people to not do things that would be likely to make the situation worse. For example, there have already been 5 hijackings worldwide this year (before today), 7 in 2000, 8 in 1999, and 14 in 1998 -- only 4 of those 34 flights resulted in fatalities, 8 total out of thousands of people involved.

What happened was horrible and unprecedented; it is very difficult to go back and speculate what any of us would have done. It doesn't matter, anyway.

If someone with a box cutter told me to "pick up my cell phone and call my relatives to tell them you are going to die" as they have just reported on the news. I wouldn't hesitate to jump him / her / it.

Death is Death.

I would rather die a fruitless death, trying to stop the Hijacker, than chance being the only survivor of the crash and know I did nothing to save my fellow man.

-Scott

Damm right I'd fight back, even if the odds were poor. Better to die fighting than to die in fear. I don't say that to be macho, just a fact. There's so many potential weapons: a laptop to the head, a Montblanc as a dagger, etc. We should not bow down to terror; they are just men too!