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Comment by throwaway1777 | Hacker News Reader

I’m surprised no one has pulled off a hijackjng again. Has security really improved that much? Because listening to the comments here you’d think it was all farcical security theater.

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Two important things came out of 9/11: cockpit doors are closed and locked now, and people fight back against hijackers. In 1968-72 there was a skyjacking every 6 days[0] but they were extortion attempts or plots to get a free flight to Cuba or some such thing. We now think that the endgame of a hijacking is that the hijackers will turn the plane into a suicide bomb, and passengers know NOT to be cooperative. These are real security improvements to air travel.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking#1958–1979

Locking cockpit doors and having the awareness that hijacking isn’t a (mostly) nonviolent stunt is sound security, not theater.

TSA (Thousands Standing Around) is much more effective as a jobs program than a security program in my estimation.

"Security theatre" generally refers to the TSA and airport screening. That's the first-paragraph description of the Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

Its visiblity and intrusiveness is precisely the point. Not its effectiveness.

> TSA (Thousands Standing Around) is much more effective as a jobs program than a security program in my estimation.

A jobs program for the private screeners that the TSA replaced.

It’s main original purpose (at least, of federalizing screening) was an excuse to transfer liability for future risks away from the airlines, which the airlines explicitly lobbied for in the immediate wake of 9/11.

The real security was locking the door to the cockpit alongside passengers being unwilling to let some dude with a knife hijack a plane anymore. The rest of the changes are security theater.

The security theater does nothing. They installed pilot doors that could only be opened from the inside. Can't exactly high jack a plane with box cutters anymore can you?

Prior to 911, hijackers took over planes for ransom. 911 was a zero day exploit. The opportunity to use hijacked planes as weapons ended with flight 93.

The primary security theater was the military personal that popped up around airports around 9/11 that carried guns but no ammunition because guns with ammunition could hurt people.

The TSA checkpoint is mostly a security theater. It stops people who don't try to hide and people who are unable to think of a way to get past it. It also limit the amount of weapons that airline personal need to see so that when they see it they can assume ill intent.

The "random" checks and blacklists seem to have mixed quality. According to some they actually worked when good investigators identified high risk people. According to other it was mostly just racism and personal vendettas. Hard to give it a definitive grade.

Locked doors and strict policy against people getting access to the cockpit seems to have worked.

OBL completely achieved his goal into trolling the west into a quagmire and got the US troops out of KSA within 16 months. Why would he need another hijacking?

The security is defense in depth. There are now:

- Background checks cross-references with photo ID before flying (e.g. the do not fly list)

- Enhanced security screening (there’s YouTube footage of a totally incompetent pat down of one of the 9-11 hijackers)

- Locked and strengthened cockpit doors

- A chance of an Air Marshal on a flight

- The knowledge that passengers will fight back

- Strict no-fly zones around sensitive areas like DC

There are additional restrictions for flight around DC after 9/11, but most are SFRA (Special Flight Rules Area) or FRZ (Flight Restriction Zone) and very little of it is a Prohibited Area or Restricted Area (P- and active R- areas being what most would understand to be “no-fly zones”)

I’ve gotten cleared to land in the “DC-3” airports and have landed at College Park (inside the FRZ) and Fort Meade (inside the SFRA) many times in light aircraft.

There are restrictions, but they’re quite far from being “no-fly zones”.

> "there’s YouTube footage of a totally incompetent pat down of one of the 9-11 hijackers"

Do you have a link? I can't find this.

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