20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

Post by chrisseaton » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

adriancr wrote: post #24

tyingq wrote: post #8

The interesting part to me is that the mode of attack for 9/11 can't easily be repeated. It depended on passengers assuming the plane was being hijacked, and that they would eventually be released. That stopped working on the 3rd (edit: 4th) plane. I don't see how it would work again. Passengers now default to assuming there's no path to live other than fighting back. Meaning many of the measures we still take aren't…

Cockpits are now locked by default, so there's no terrorist getting in there anymore, they can threaten anything, all it would do is divert to closest landing spot.

Post by wizzwizz4 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

h2odragon wrote: post #41

EMM_386 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't related to the Shoe Bomber plot, there was planning around something larger scale. To be honest I don't feel comfortable even linking to this stuff but it's Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot

> I don't feel comfortable even linking to this stuff Why not? "eww this is propaganda" or "talking about terrorist makes me one?"

Post by iso1210 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

depaya wrote: post #44

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the body scanners, but I don't know if they can detect anything weird in shoes. That said, how many shoe bombs have they intercepted? That should be a pretty good indication about whether it's still necessary, and I like to think the policy change (or lack thereof) is data-driven.

I've never liked the argument "how many shoe bombs have been intercepted?" or "how many terrorists have been stopped?" when it comes to TSA-style security. The presence of the security isn't necessarily meant to find people in the act of carrying out terrorism , it's mean to deter it in the first place since you will be found out (well, in theory anyway...). It's impossible to quantify how many plots have been deterr…

Post by pharmakom » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

baktubi wrote: post #45

the_snooze wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. It's not a 9/11-style attack we need to be worried about. No one will let a plane get commandeered ever again. The 9/11 terrorists took advantage of the "comply with the hijackers" policy in place at the time. That opportunity ended the moment the second plane hit the towers. The real threat is lone wolf random attacks on the general public like the DC sniper. That's a very low-cost high-impact attack tha…

I think the nation should make military training/civil service mandatory. The reality is that random attacks will happen in random places and everyone needs to be equipped to handle accordingly. Basic combat training and paramedic abilities, disaster recovery and such associated procedures. This would create a tighter bond between citizens and improve communities ability to look after one-another. If everyone handles…

Post by tyingq » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

ridaj wrote: post #56

bambax wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and this is why crazy pilots suffering from depression can bury their planes in the ground and nobody can do anything about it. 200 people lost their life in the crash of Germanwings 9525 on March 24, 2015, but this is not classified as a terrorist attack so it doesn't really count for anything. However, it is the direct consequence of the so-called security procedures implemented the world over; those 200 peopl…

Source? This is at best an indirect consequence EDIT post downvotes: what I mean is that even without a lock on the cockpit to prevent their copilot from entering, it seems difficult to prevent a determined pilot from crashing a plane.