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> Most notoriously, the airlines, after the hijacks to Cuba in the late Sixties and early Seventies, made sure that Congress and the FAA did not require hardene
by erentz 8y ago
> Most notoriously, the airlines, after the hijacks to Cuba in the late Sixties and early Seventies, made sure that Congress and the FAA did not require hardened cockpit doors and stronger latches on all aircraft, costing a modest $3000 per plane. Then the 9/11 massacre happened, a grisly consequence of non-regulation, pushed by right wing corporatist advocacy centers.
This is a curious and very sad bit of history I was unaware of.
- iforgotpassword 8y agoWell, those very same strengthened doors actually also caused around 150 deaths. https://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/26/europe/france-germanwings-plane-crash-main/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/26/europe/france-germanwings...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- detaro 8y agoWasn't part of it that before 9/11 a hijacker using the plane as a weapon or wanting to kill everyone wasn't the expected, and thus the assumed "best" route was to comply (as not to provoke the hijacker to start killing hostages to increase the pressure), go wherever they want and hope law enforcement will sort it out? E.g. the cited Cuba hijackers didn't very often kill people. Some of them might have given up when unable to get to flight crew, but others might have used more force to get what they wanted.
- erentz 8y agoThat's always been my understanding of it. Hijackings were common in Europe for example and that's how it almost always went down. (Not too familiar with the history of hijackings in USA, but sounds the same.) Then we saw the change right on 9/11 when passengers on UA93 learned their hijackers intended fate and fought back.
- mikeash 8y agoI’m going to put a big fat Citation Needed on that one. I don’t see how it would have helped in the 1970s. The hijackers take over the rest of the plane and say they’re going to execute one passenger every hour unless the pilots take them to Cuba. Are we expecting the pilots to say, nope, we’re safe, execute whoever you want? 9/11 was a game changer becasue it was a completely new kind of hijacking where the hijackers have no demands and everybody dies quickly if the hijacking goes according to plan. Reinforced doors are useful there, becasue threats to the passengers don’t hold weight when you know they’ll all die anyway if you open the door. That was very much not the case in the 70s.
- iforgotpassword 8y agoWouldn't it make sense in that case to just pretend it was a "regular" hijacking? Why should you go "hey pilots, open the doors or not, everyone is gonna die anyways." Vs. Open the door now or we'll kill a passenger every 10 minutes."
- jdblair 8y agoThat won't work, because the protocol has changed. No pilot today will open the door, even as someone dies every 20 minutes. The pilots will divert to the closest airport and land.
- iforgotpassword 8y agoI wouldn't bet on that. It might be protocol, but they're humans, not robots.
- dmix 8y agoConsidering letting the pilot take control of the controls far more likely increases the casualty count to everyone on board + far more people on the ground, so I believe landing is still the better option and is something that pilots can learn.