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I was 30 years old, saw it live on TV. So ... no But as others have pointed out, a lot of the TSA processes (taking off shoes, laptops, liquids, etc.) are poin

I was 30 years old, saw it live on TV. So ... no But as others have pointed out, a lot of the TSA processes (taking off shoes, laptops, liquids, etc.) are pointless. What prevents another 9/11 are the cockpit doors, which have nothing to do with TSA.

bdangubic 2y ago
the shoes, the tooth paste, the water… are all necessary security theatre. the real work is happening behind the scenes. but the theatre is also necessary (albeit not as dramatic as we have it now :) )
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  how is the theatre also necessary?
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    it is necessary so that some Adam Lanza-wannabe doesn’t get any ideas on how to quickly become infamous
    - cogman10 2y ago
      The school shooters do that because it's shocking and gets in the news. We have so many crowded situations throughout the world where an equal splash could be made. We need about as much security around the airport as we need around a subway or a concert. After the dark knight shooting, we didn't find the need to put up xray scanners in every movie theater. It's dumb to do that with airports. Were I to guess, the reason we focus so heavily on airports is because our lawmakers fly more than most of the population. The theater is likely their safety blanket.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        We need about as much security around the airport as we need around a subway or a concert. as soon as we have 2.7 million people in subway and/or concert daily in the US you'd be right... until then...
        cogman10 2y ago
        NYC has 3.6 million daily riders. So guess I'm right.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        NYC is an island... doing shit on the NYC subway disrupts bunch of people living on a (largely populated) island. doing shit on airplanes causes country-wide (and beyond) issues.
        cogman10 2y ago
        > doing shit on airplanes causes country-wide (and beyond) issues. Like what? In the absolute worst case it grounds flights nation wide and 100 people die. In the grand scheme of things that's a minor hiccup and not a likely outcome. We saw a bigger impact from the polar vortex. The security simply doesn't match the value. I'll remind you that 70 people died from an airplane accident. Tragic, but we were hardly impacted by it. When you talk about 2.7 million flyers, the impact of a few hundred dying a year still makes it one of the safest forms of travel. Airplanes aren't special and shouldn't have the annoying special security treatment they do today.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        if few hundred died per year that number 2.7 would not be millions but maybe hundreds :)
        cogman10 2y ago
        A few hundred do die per year. In 2023 it was 327.
    - Lammy 2y ago
      Security theater guarantees a giant line of people right in the front where that crowd is most easily accessible instead of at the back if those people could go straight to their gates. I would rather see news media stop making every one of those people infamous so it ceases to be a way to get a bunch of attention.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        I would rather see news media stop making every one of those people infamous so it ceases to be a way to get a bunch of attention. amen! but we know that ain't happening
    - sealeck 2y ago
      That's like imagining school shooters won't get an AR-15 and do a school shooting because you put an otherwise unarmed guy with a baton by the front gate.
  - jghn 2y ago
    It's "necessary" because the TSA is largely just a jobs program, albeit one that is palatable to the median American.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Spooky23 2y ago
I’m sure the dude with the Sawzall will find that funny.
extraduder_ire 2y ago
I think locked cockpit doors pale in comparison to the average airline passenger knowing it's a possibility.
- colonial 2y ago
  This is exactly right. Before 9/11, hijackings weren't unheard of, but they were almost universally political stunts with some "hostage situation" to taste [1]. As a passenger, if you just played along, your odds of getting hurt were quite low. Nowadays, any would-be hijacker is going to get immediately dogpiled and beat within an inch of their lives before they ever reach first class. [1]: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-egyptair https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-e...
  - dmoy 2y ago
    Alternatively: if you flew Southwest prior to 9/11, other passengers would absolutely murder you if you threatened to go in the cockpit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1763 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_17... Post 9/11 everyone else just caught up (except minus the actually killing the person), see e.g. the shoe bomber guy.
  - SilasX 2y ago
    >Before 9/11, hijackings weren't unheard of, but they were almost universally political stunts with some "hostage situation" to taste [1]. As a passenger, if you just played along, your odds of getting hurt were quite low. Yeah. So much that, on the morning of 9/11, when a student in my college class was announcing there was a hijacking, I remember wanting to shout “Who cares? Those happen all the time and it gets resolved![1] Why is this a priority?” … until he got to the part about it crashing into the WTC. [1] Which, of course, still would have been out of line to say, but I was unusually cranky and didn’t get why that would be something to stop everything over.
scarface_74 2y ago
With the newer scanners, you don’t have to take laptops out even without TSA pre check from what I have read. We have TSA Precheck so I can’t verify it. I do know flying from Los Cabos Mexico where TSA doesn’t matter, I didn’t have to remove my laptop a couple of years ago
BobaFloutist 2y ago
The other thing that prevents another 9/11 is the first 9/11. Before 9/11, airplane hijackers were like bank robbers: idiots trying to get some cash. If you just followed their orders, everyone would mostly get out alive. Even mid-9/11, when it became clear that the hijackers were using the planes to attack civilians (at the necessary cost of the lives of the passengers), people stopped cooperating and stopped the final plane from reaching its target. Even if someone walked into the cockpit with a gun they'd get nothing for their trouble but an immediate nosedive as the pilot sacrificed the plane to protect whatever the intended target was.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  The nosedive would also throw the hijacker up to the ceiling and/or backwards with a good chance of knocking him out or at least giving him a nasty concussion.
- NhanH 2y ago
  For the situation where the hijacker can actually control the plane, I'd imagine the US military now has a more proper response and will be able to scramble jet in time to shoot down the plane (they didn't have such plan for domestic situation in 2001).
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  also, before 9/11 many airplane hijackers were also political protests (PLO, Cuba, etc.) where the goal was _not_ to kill anyone, not terrorists intent on killing as many people as possible
njarboe 2y ago
Cockpit doors and the fact that just letting hijackers do what they want is no longer acceptable to Americans. We solved the hijacking problem about 60 minutes after the first plane hit the twin towers. Flight 93 is proof of that.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Given how polarized the US has gotten: I wonder how much we regressed in 23 years and if modern people would do the same thing.
  - ksenzee 2y ago
    It’s a good question. If you filled a flight with as many attackers as you could get tickets for, would the remaining seats have enough people willing and able to fight back? I’ll admit I’m glad they lock the cockpit doors.

bdangubic 2y ago

the shoes, the tooth paste, the water… are all necessary security theatre. the real work is happening behind the scenes. but the theatre is also necessary (albeit not as dramatic as we have it now :) )

insane_dreamer 2y ago
how is the theatre also necessary?
- bdangubic 2y ago
  it is necessary so that some Adam Lanza-wannabe doesn’t get any ideas on how to quickly become infamous
  - cogman10 2y ago
    The school shooters do that because it's shocking and gets in the news. We have so many crowded situations throughout the world where an equal splash could be made. We need about as much security around the airport as we need around a subway or a concert. After the dark knight shooting, we didn't find the need to put up xray scanners in every movie theater. It's dumb to do that with airports. Were I to guess, the reason we focus so heavily on airports is because our lawmakers fly more than most of the population. The theater is likely their safety blanket.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      We need about as much security around the airport as we need around a subway or a concert. as soon as we have 2.7 million people in subway and/or concert daily in the US you'd be right... until then...
      - cogman10 2y ago
        NYC has 3.6 million daily riders. So guess I'm right.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        NYC is an island... doing shit on the NYC subway disrupts bunch of people living on a (largely populated) island. doing shit on airplanes causes country-wide (and beyond) issues.
        cogman10 2y ago
        > doing shit on airplanes causes country-wide (and beyond) issues. Like what? In the absolute worst case it grounds flights nation wide and 100 people die. In the grand scheme of things that's a minor hiccup and not a likely outcome. We saw a bigger impact from the polar vortex. The security simply doesn't match the value. I'll remind you that 70 people died from an airplane accident. Tragic, but we were hardly impacted by it. When you talk about 2.7 million flyers, the impact of a few hundred dying a year still makes it one of the safest forms of travel. Airplanes aren't special and shouldn't have the annoying special security treatment they do today.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        if few hundred died per year that number 2.7 would not be millions but maybe hundreds :)
        cogman10 2y ago
        A few hundred do die per year. In 2023 it was 327.
  - Lammy 2y ago
    Security theater guarantees a giant line of people right in the front where that crowd is most easily accessible instead of at the back if those people could go straight to their gates. I would rather see news media stop making every one of those people infamous so it ceases to be a way to get a bunch of attention.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      I would rather see news media stop making every one of those people infamous so it ceases to be a way to get a bunch of attention. amen! but we know that ain't happening
  - sealeck 2y ago
    That's like imagining school shooters won't get an AR-15 and do a school shooting because you put an otherwise unarmed guy with a baton by the front gate.
- jghn 2y ago
  It's "necessary" because the TSA is largely just a jobs program, albeit one that is palatable to the median American.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Spooky23 2y ago

I’m sure the dude with the Sawzall will find that funny.

extraduder_ire 2y ago

I think locked cockpit doors pale in comparison to the average airline passenger knowing it's a possibility.

colonial 2y ago
This is exactly right. Before 9/11, hijackings weren't unheard of, but they were almost universally political stunts with some "hostage situation" to taste [1]. As a passenger, if you just played along, your odds of getting hurt were quite low. Nowadays, any would-be hijacker is going to get immediately dogpiled and beat within an inch of their lives before they ever reach first class. [1]: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-egyptair https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-e...
- dmoy 2y ago
  Alternatively: if you flew Southwest prior to 9/11, other passengers would absolutely murder you if you threatened to go in the cockpit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1763 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_17... Post 9/11 everyone else just caught up (except minus the actually killing the person), see e.g. the shoe bomber guy.
- SilasX 2y ago
  >Before 9/11, hijackings weren't unheard of, but they were almost universally political stunts with some "hostage situation" to taste [1]. As a passenger, if you just played along, your odds of getting hurt were quite low. Yeah. So much that, on the morning of 9/11, when a student in my college class was announcing there was a hijacking, I remember wanting to shout “Who cares? Those happen all the time and it gets resolved![1] Why is this a priority?” … until he got to the part about it crashing into the WTC. [1] Which, of course, still would have been out of line to say, but I was unusually cranky and didn’t get why that would be something to stop everything over.

scarface_74 2y ago

With the newer scanners, you don’t have to take laptops out even without TSA pre check from what I have read. We have TSA Precheck so I can’t verify it. I do know flying from Los Cabos Mexico where TSA doesn’t matter, I didn’t have to remove my laptop a couple of years ago

BobaFloutist 2y ago

The other thing that prevents another 9/11 is the first 9/11. Before 9/11, airplane hijackers were like bank robbers: idiots trying to get some cash. If you just followed their orders, everyone would mostly get out alive. Even mid-9/11, when it became clear that the hijackers were using the planes to attack civilians (at the necessary cost of the lives of the passengers), people stopped cooperating and stopped the final plane from reaching its target. Even if someone walked into the cockpit with a gun they'd get nothing for their trouble but an immediate nosedive as the pilot sacrificed the plane to protect whatever the intended target was.

SoftTalker 2y ago
The nosedive would also throw the hijacker up to the ceiling and/or backwards with a good chance of knocking him out or at least giving him a nasty concussion.
NhanH 2y ago
For the situation where the hijacker can actually control the plane, I'd imagine the US military now has a more proper response and will be able to scramble jet in time to shoot down the plane (they didn't have such plan for domestic situation in 2001).
insane_dreamer 2y ago
also, before 9/11 many airplane hijackers were also political protests (PLO, Cuba, etc.) where the goal was _not_ to kill anyone, not terrorists intent on killing as many people as possible

njarboe 2y ago

Cockpit doors and the fact that just letting hijackers do what they want is no longer acceptable to Americans. We solved the hijacking problem about 60 minutes after the first plane hit the twin towers. Flight 93 is proof of that.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Given how polarized the US has gotten: I wonder how much we regressed in 23 years and if modern people would do the same thing.
- ksenzee 2y ago
  It’s a good question. If you filled a flight with as many attackers as you could get tickets for, would the remaining seats have enough people willing and able to fight back? I’ll admit I’m glad they lock the cockpit doors.