I just heard something on the news that has me choked up. On the flight that went down near Pittsburgh, one of the passengers called his wife and told her that they were going to rush the hijaackers. He told her they were all going to die but that they wanted to do something, and that he loved her. This is the plane that they now suspect was going to try to hit the White House. We'll probably never know what happened, but they may have saved the White House from being destroyed.

And of course, every one of the several hundred firefighters and police who died while trying to help evacuate the WTC buildings are heroes too.

It's so tragic.

I kept thinking that if I were on that plane, I would have done something like that. It's hard to really know what you'd do, but...two guys with box-knives? I have to think that I'd try something, if I had any idea how things were going to end. But, then, hijacking so seldom ends like this...

However that plane came down -- whether it be passengers, the pilot, or another military plane -- many people owe that event their lives.

Heroes, indeed.

Where'd you hear that, Mark?

I'm incredibly proud of New York and New Yorkers from the stories coming in. Also of that freelance photographer who got that shot of the second plane hitting and then of the building collapsing, at considerable risk to his own safety and extreme professionalism (also because I hear he donated the footage without a thought of gain). As the horrific death toll starts pouring in tomorrow, I'm hoping stories like those keep coming as well.

On a very sentimental note, I hope some of you saw that Congressional press conference on the steps of the Capitol Building(?) at 6:30 CST or so? I could be very wrong about the time but it seemed to happen before the president's speech.

About 50 congressmen and women stood there, some making speeches for the press. After the last one finished (I confess I wasn't listening to them by then) the camera followed him to stage left but he stopped and turned back. You could hear people singing. Just a few at first but it caught like fire and soon the whole crowd was singing America the Beautiful.

Jennings came on and noted that he wasn't sure if it was spontaneous or not, but the effect it had on me, my wife, and my sister-in-law was profound.

I'm not normally a flag waver but I'm proud to be American nonetheless.

-Andrew

One of the networks -- not sure. The TV's going in the other room and I heard it and went in. I didn't notice the channel.

Yeah, you'd certainly rush them if you knew what they had planned, but I think the initial thought would be that they would land the plane somewhere. That's always been the pattern of hijackings in the past. If you thought that, you might play it safe and let them control the plane.

Yeah, I have a hunch that someone on the plane -- either the pilot, which is feasible, or someone on the cell phone with someone outside who had seen the news -- found out about the other attacks, and put two and two together. Otherwise, you're absolutely right -- things just don't happen like this. It always ends peacefully.

I heard the Secretary Of Defense, when he realized the pentagon had been hit, ran to the scene and assisted with initial rescue efforts. Pretty gutsy. I live inside the beltway, so never putmuch stock in political appointees. He was probably needed somewhere else, with all this going on, but he showed he was very...human.

There's an article on MSNBC's site about some of these phone calls. See http://www.msnbc.com/news/627214.asp.

Apparently passengers did rush the Pittsburg flight terrorists.

The most brutal thing I've read about the whole incident is in this article. It says the terrorists were killing the stewardesses to lure the pilots out of the cockpit. I really can't even imagine.

- Raife

I had an epiphany yesterday as I watched the coverage, and considered the passengers. The hijackers had an advantage yesterday morning that hijackers will never have again. Never again will hostages believe the "stay calm and you'll get out of this" spiel.

Perhaps the masses won't realize this, won't process it in any kind of active way. But it will sink in to all of us subconsciously. I don't truly know how I would react in the situation. I'd probably have taken the safer course, believing that action could make a bad situation worse. Or maybe I just would have been reduced to a slobbering fool. Fact is, the ease with which groups of hostages can be quelled was bargained away yesterday, at least to an extent. More people now will have the tendency to remember this day, recall images of airliners slamming into buildings and think, "What do I have to lose? We're gonna die anyway."

-Christien (Amanpour)

I agree totally Christien. I had the same thoughts this morning. Anyone contemplating a hijacking of an American airliner in the next few years better have an automatic weapon or a bomb because I believe passengers will not behave like sheep and try to ride the hijacking out, they will act. And act without mercy.

-DavidCPA

I'm thinking Sky Marshalls would be a good new policy as well. Say, two per flight. Armed not with guns but tasers, cuffs, clubs, and skill.

-Andrew
(Btw Christien,
I've always thought you were pretty hot.)

"normally a flag waver but I'm proud to be American nonetheless"

Reaction to these horrors has little to do with feeling American. All sensical human beings are horrified by what occurred. Thousands of people died because of some imbecilic zealots. This is an attack on the sensibilities of the civilized world, not just an american phenomenon.

Agreed Anonymous.
I was also very proud and comforted by Tony Blair's poised remarks yesterday and this morning. It's an attack on the world, etc., but surely you understand the extra added dimension we American's are certainly experiencing. It's our people who are dead, and our people who are struggling to cope/clean up after it.

-Andrew

I actually look better on CNN than I do in real life. I'm certainly no Ashleigh Banfield. Talk about a hottie.

-Amanpour

Pish-tosh. The bottle blond with the funny glasses vs. the hardcore brunette trench journalist? Bah!

Still,
I'm fairly sure I'd look better on CNN than in real life too.

-Andrew

Unfortunately you're probably talking about some 10k-20k sky marshalls. The funny thing is that the FAA won't say how many sky marshalls there actually are roaming the airlines, but the consensus is that it's much less than it was in the 70s when the program started and the 80s. One surely would have made a big difference in one of these hijackings.

"Ah, you brought a knife to a gunfight."

--- Alan

Sky marshalls are currently only used on flights where some risk has been anticipated. Regular flights have not had ANY sky marshalls for years now. There was no chance of one being on one of those flights yesterday.

Alan,
More like a taser to a box cutter fight, in this case. Besides, we shouldn't have guns on airplanes, even if the good guys are the ones packing.

-Andrew

I saw a special on the History Channel about a year ago. There are some mighty effective non-lethal (read: Non-hull-piercing) weaponry available these days. You do need to make sure that no easy countermeasures exist for them, though...

"Fact is, the ease with which groups of hostages can be quelled was bargained away yesterday, at least to an extent."

You are exactly right. Every other hijacking I've ever seen means you spend a few days stuck on the plane, but you can expect to survive. Not any more. I've been flat out telling everyone I talk to about this to charge the terrorists at the first opportunity.

This reminds me of a crime defense tip: Don't let yourself be taken to a secondary crime scene. If you get assaulted, and the perp tries to move you to a different location (i.e. better for him), you are probably going to die, so make lots of noise and fight back. The most likely scenario is that the perp does not want to get caught, and will run.

My best friend and I were discussing this tonight, and we both feel the same way: Regardless of anything else, when people started stabbing stewardesses, I would have done something.

Having worked on planes, this would have been my strategy: Take the cushion off the seat (most of them have straps on the back, so they can be used as a floatation device), and use it as a shield from the box-knives. The seatbelts can be easily taken off the seat, too -- makeshift flail. I think I'd be able to take at least a couple of guys out swinging one of those seatbelts. Maybe someone else would follow suit, too.

Of course, I wasn't there, so it's hard to say for certain what I'd do. But I think all thoughts of "If I just sit here, they'll land the plane and this will be just a routine hijacking" would have been gone as soon as they stabbed someone. All bets are off then. If they're just gonna land the plane, they're not likely to stab someone. Besides, that's just not right.

Of course -- it's easy to be brave sitting here in my cube...

CNN has more details about the downed Pittsburgh flight. The passengers found out via cell phone that the WTC had been hit and then voted to attack the terrorists. The terrorists claimed they had a bomb and also said they were going to land the plane at an airport. Here's the link to the story:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/plane.phone.call/

"You are exactly right. Every other hijacking I've ever seen means you spend a few days stuck on the plane, but you can expect to survive. Not any more. I've been flat out telling everyone I talk to about this to charge the terrorists at the first opportunity."

Yeah, but what scares me are scenarios like a Cessna loaded with explosives crashing into an open air football stadium during a game. They may not go for commercial airplanes next time, but there are so many other things they can do.

"This reminds me of a crime defense tip: Don't let yourself be taken to a secondary crime scene. If you get assaulted, and the perp tries to move you to a different location (i.e. better for him), you are probably going to die, so make lots of noise and fight back. The most likely scenario is that the perp does not want to get caught, and will run."

Yeah, I've heard this too. Even if someone points a gun at you, you're more likely to survive by running than getting into the car. Chances are they won't shoot, and then if they do shoot, there's a good chance they'll miss, and if they do hit, there's a good chance it won't be fatal. If you get in the car you're probably dead.

"Of course -- it's easy to be brave sitting here in my cube..."

Exactly. I can imagine it would be very tempting to rationalize cowardice. "A lot of times hijackers kill one or two people - just to be taken seriously. They only attacked airline employees..."

Naturally, I like to think I'd behave like an action movie hero, but who can say. Regardless, those who did fight back were incredibly brave and surely saved many lives. Even assuming they figured out the hijackers were on a suicide mission, like I said, it would have been very tempting to rationalize inaction.

Murph, I think anyone with a reasonable amount of morality would want to resist. Fight back. Thing is, you don't know. Maybe they had a woman, or small child with a knife to their neck, threatening anyone who moved. Would you want that death on your hands? Sure it's twisted, and your're not the one with the knife, but could you absolve yourself of responsibility?

Most of the reports indicate they all said they had bombs. Maybe they just had blinking boxes, but if a terrorist says it's a bomb that he'll detonate if anyone moves, that's quite the deterrent. It's certainly happened enough to be believable.

And people probably still thought they'd survive if they cooperated. There were probably corpses of people who didn't, or didn't fast enough.

The Pittsburg flight is a good example of what happens when that potential for safety and survival is removed.

It's a very different environment here, reflecting. It's quiet. It's peaceful. In a terror situation like this, there were probably scattered bloody bodies, people screaming, people crying, and everything happens like it's running in fast-forward.

It's terrible that people can do this sort of thing. Kill with so little remorse. I agree that hijackers and terrorists will no longer have the luxury of cooperative hostages, at least not for a long time. But I think that to second-guess the actions of those passengers is wrong.

- Raife

I never meant to criticize anyone who didn't take action, and I did confess that I really don't know. I like to think that I'd do something. I never heard any accounts of them threaten to harm children if anyone moved, or anything like that. Of course, in that case, I wouldn't. If they said that they had bombs, I probably wouldn't, either. If I knew that we were all dead, anyway, I would. In the absense of already stated threats, I would not sit by and watch them kill people. They want to be taken seriously, great. But I won't watch them kill people. I'll do whatever I can to save another life. At least, I think I would.

---

Quote:

It's a very different environment here, reflecting. It's quiet. It's peaceful. In a terror situation like this, there were probably scattered bloody bodies, people screaming, people crying, and everything happens like it's running in fast-forward.

---

That wasn't an attack on you, just a reminder that it's really tough to know just what was going on. I use the threatening women/kids example because this is a common terror tactic. The claimed bombs have been reported in the cell phone conversations.

As I said, anyone with any sense of morality would want to act, but it's very hard to make a call as to when. There are way too many variables when it unfolds right in front of you. I don't think there are many who could sit by and watch them kill people without some sort of additional outside threat. It's almost instinctive to react.

Maybe if terrorism happened in turn-based rather than real-time, victims would have a better shot.

- Raife

w/r/t action in these situations, I keep considering the environment of a commercial airliner, and how much that plays in to the hands of a hijacker. Thinking of being stuck in those seats, barely able to move in the best of circumstances. Waiting for a second to act if even you can decide to act, yet knowing the window of action is even narrower in your physical position. As soon as you move it will be obvious. Your movements depend on who is around you and how big they are, upon what seat you are in, upon where exactly the hijackers are. In addition you may have family with you that you feel it is your duty to protect.

In the plane that went down in Pennsylvania the passengers were apparently moved to the back of the plane, though, so that may have made action easier, at least psychologically.

In addition, again considering the environment of the airplane, as it heads into a building most people on the plane would be able to see little or nothing. You cannot tell where the plane is going. You can barely see anything out of those little windows. I just keep imagining the passengers, seeing the water as they flew over New York. What could they have been thinking?

-Christien (Amanpour)

That's a good point, Christien. Something else might be the psychological conditioning of people on airliners. The whole time during a flight, you are following orders. Line up in row order, check your bags, check your tickets, put on your seatbelt, don't disturb the other passengers. I wonder if that helps terrorists by making the audience sort of pre-disposed towards docility in the face of being ordered around.

I imagine the passengers and any surviving crew were told they were headed for JFK or Dulles. I don't think it's a coincidence that all targets had very nearby airports. Until the first impact, it would have been insane to do anything like shoot the planes down. Just as it would have been irresponsible for passengers or crew to have fought the meagerly armed hijackers until then.

I think the conditioning these hijackers took advantage of was that hijacking situations often end with all hostages unharmed, or else most of them unharmed.

It'll never happen again. Hijacking is now by definition a suicide mission.

I've heard reports more suspected terrorists were arrested tonight, apparently prepared the same way (knives & commercial jet piloting skills). I think they'd have had to have killed every single able bodied person on the plane to be able to control the plane.

If they do that, they don't have the traditional hostages to negotiate with. If they actually land somewhere, they're not going to get fuel or anything else regardless of the presence of living hostages.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that all targets had very nearby airports."

Sorry this is just a minor quibble. Name a target that doesn't have a major airport nearby.

Mt. Rushmore?
I agree with the rest of your post.
-Andrew

"I've heard reports more suspected terrorists were arrested tonight, apparently prepared the same way (knives & commercial jet piloting skills). I think they'd have had to have killed every single able bodied person on the plane to be able to control the plane."

Yeah, but there have been a number of false stories today. I can't imagine anyone thought they'd be able to hijack a plane on the day flights reopened. It doesn't make sense unless the people arrested thought they'd be rounded up anyway, and so decided to chance it. Maybe they hoped to get by the initial security and then grab an empty plane on the ground.

"Sorry this is just a minor quibble. Name a target that doesn't have a major airport nearby."

Not too many, but I know JFK is unusually close to the city. I've never been to DC. I know flights into San Diego often appear to be on a collision course with its modest skyline. It's startling to see from the freeway. I think I'd be a nervous wreck now if I worked in one of those buildings.

Downtown LA is not nearly as close to LAX, Burbank, or Orange County airports.

DIA (Denver) is pretty far removed from civilization. We sometimes refer to it as 'Wyoming'. The old airport was within city limits, a good 30 miles closer to downtown, the mint, sports arenas, etc.

But at 300-500mph, you're right, even 50 miles is probably insufficient distance to allow any reaction.

Ronald Reagan Airport is still closed because of its proximity to the Capitol. They showed one camera angle looking out of the window at the terminal and you could see the Capitol building plain as day right across the river.

Philadelphia Airport is very close to downtown Philly and the flight pattern often goes right down the Delaware along the city limits. It's one of my least favorite descents.

More immediate for me is that Reading Airport is very close to my home. Approximately 3 miles... we're often right under the commuters that fly in and out of there. I heard one plane last night and practically jumped out of my skin. Sure, Reading isn't a likely target for anything other than the drug trade (we were part of that huge raid earlier this year), but it's still disconcerting.

--Dave