Another 9/11 What-If

[Bill Garvin]

Seeinga s we are looking at AH variants of the 9/11 attacks, how about this.

On 9/11 2001, an air display team is visiting New York and its aircraft are stationed nearby. One of the team members is up on a test/navigation flight when the attack starts. The first of the airliners makes its strike successfully but the display team aircraft arrives in time to intercept the second. Being a display team aircraft it's unarmed so the pilot rams the second airliner, flipping it off course. The airliner misses the second tower, crashes in New York harbor and does virtually no damage. The display team aircraft is critically damaged but the pilot knows if he ejects, it will crash in the city. Therefore he rides the bird in, managing to put it in the Hudson River where the crash does negligable damage. Sadly, he's killed in the crash landing.

What would the effects be if:-

A - The display team is the Red Arrows and the pilot is British

B - The display team is the Blue Knights and thr pilot is Russian

C - The display team is the Patrouille de France and the pilot is French.

[Fellatio Nelson]

Would you ram your plane into a packed passenger airliner unless you were absolutely, positively 100% certain that the passengers were doomed because the aircraft was going to crash into something (and kill far more people)?

I was under the impression it was all rather confused and I can't see a display team being kept in the loop, much less being given explicit instructions from the highest authority to bring down an airliner.

[Mark E.]

Perhaps the display pilot, having seen one airliner hit a tower, would be astute enough to visually see the course of the second one and take the action described.

[MUC]

Originally Posted by Fellatio Nelson

Would you ram your plane into a packed passenger airliner unless you were absolutely, positively 100% certain that the passengers were doomed because the aircraft was going to crash into something (and kill far more people)?

I was under the impression it was all rather confused and I can't see a display team being kept in the loop, much less being given explicit instructions from the highest authority to bring down an airliner.

Aren't there reports of US pilots on 9/11 who claimed they had no weapons on board, but offered to ram any plane they were told was probably hijacked?

[Fellatio Nelson]

Originally Posted by MUC

Aren't there reports of US pilots on 9/11 who claimed they had no weapons on board, but offered to ram any plane they were told was probably hijacked?

Sounds about right... (and not in a good way).

The main problem is not having a bona fide interceptor pilot being told categorically to shoot down plane X, but rather confusion and a free for all for any pilots in the area.