WI the 9/11 planes were int'l flights.

[A Random Person]

Lets say:

one from france to get them in the war.

one from russia to strain ties.

and the other two from where ever will get the worst results.

[General Mung Beans]

Originally Posted by A Random Person

Lets say:

one from france to get them in the war.

one from russia to strain ties.

and the other two from where ever will get the worst results.

It still won't matter as long as it can be proven that Al Qaeda were the ones who hijacked the plane.

[mowque]

Originally Posted by A Random Person

Lets say:

one from france to get them in the war.

one from russia to strain ties.

and the other two from where ever will get the worst results.

I love the idea that an attack from Russia will "strain ties" but one from France will cause war,

[Redem]

Originally Posted by General Mung Beans

It still won't matter as long as it can be proven that Al Qaeda were the ones who hijacked the plane.

Well you might get conspiracy theories that are a bit different

[CalBear]

Well, if the planes at the end of their flights both towers will almost certainly survive. The aircraft themselves will be 33-45% lighter than those which hit the towers and the fires will be far less intense thanks to much less jet fuel being available to feed the flames.

If the flights take off from the U.S. there would be remarkably little difference. The WORLD rallied around the U.S. on 9/11 and the U.S. had all the support it could have asked for in going after bin Laden & the Taliban in Afghanistan. A lesser man than George W Bush would NEVER have been able to burn up all that good will in less than three years.

[Dean_the_Young]

Originally Posted by CalBear

Well, if the planes at the end of their flights both towers will almost certainly survive. The aircraft themselves will be 33-45% lighter than those which hit the towers and the fires will be far less intense thanks to much less jet fuel being available to feed the flames.

If the flights take off from the U.S. there would be remarkably little difference. The WORLD rallied around the U.S. on 9/11 and the U.S. had all the support it could have asked for in going after bin Laden & the Taliban in Afghanistan. A lesser man than George W Bush would NEVER have been able to burn up all that good will in less than three years.

I disagree, both on specifics and on the general principle that "never" is a very formidable absolute. Sympathy only goes so far, and only lasts so long before it twists into worse from overuse.

[carlton_bach]

If they'd been international flights there's a good chance someone would have caught the hijackers at security. Checks are a lot tougher.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by carlton_bach

If they'd been international flights there's a good chance someone would have caught the hijackers at security. Checks are a lot tougher.

This is the important point, esp for any aircraft flying from Western Europe. We already had good security checks in place before 9/11, whereas I was regularly told by Europeans flying in America that there is was more like getting on a bus in comparison.

[ninebucks]

If they were international flights, the towers probably wouldn't have collapsed. The planes would be lighter and there'd be no fiery explosion melting the towers' steel infrastructure. There'd be quite a lot of deaths, but people in the towers would have much more time to evacuate.

If the towers do collapse, it'll be later than OTL, probably after the area is evacuated. If they don't collapse, they'll be condemned and urgently subjected to a controlled demolition.

The 9/11 conspirators chose to use westward-bound domestic flights to specifically maximise destruction. However! It is debatable whether there is even a corrolation between the scale of a terrorist attack and the psychological impact in the victim population. The post-9/11 reaction would have probably been identical whether fifty people were killed or whether five thousand were killed...

[Doctor What]

Originally Posted by Jason

This is the important point, esp for any aircraft flying from Western Europe. We already had good security checks in place before 9/11, whereas I was regularly told by Europeans flying in America that there is was more like getting on a bus in comparison.

I heard from friends of mine who worked overseas that european businessmen *loved* travelling to the US pre 9/11 for precisely that reason.

Would they even have been able to smuggle box knives on board the planes to begin with?

Aside from the lesser amount of fuel the planes would have been carrying (which means that even if the towers collapsed, they would have collapsed a bit later), an international flight would have required them to have taken off the night before, so that would give the crew a few more hours to notice anything suspicious.

Originally Posted by Dean_the_Young

I disagree, both on specifics and on the general principle that "never" is a very formidable absolute. Sympathy only goes so far, and only lasts so long before it twists into worse from overuse.

Bitter Dean?

[A Random Person]

Originally Posted by Doctor What

Aside from the lesser amount of fuel the planes would have been carrying (which means that even if the towers collapsed, they would have collapsed a bit later), an international flight would have required them to have taken off the night before, so that would give the crew a few more hours to notice anything suspicious.

I was thinking the planed was on a stop over in boston before continuing to somewhere else.

[stalkere]

Originally Posted by A Random Person

I was thinking the planed was on a stop over in boston before continuing to somewhere else.

I dunno. Haven't been overseas in awhile. But AFAIK:
These flight were chosen because they were transcontinental flight with large fuel loads and they were at the beginning of the trip.
A flight ending in the US would be at minimal fuel.

Most International flights terminate at the first place they land in the US, for a myriad of reasons. They, generally, do not stop in NYC, refuel, and continue to Chicago, if that's what you were thinking.

Generally speaking, it's London to somewhere in the BOSNYWASH area, or say, Tokyo to LAX or SEATAC. The plane is unloaded and the passengers and cargo are unloaded and get on other planes for follow-on flights to their destinations. The long hauler is then checked over, searched, refueled, resupplied and sent somewhere else.

Generally speaking, the Transatlantic, Transpacific routes are served with dedicated airframes that ONLY go transoceanic. Their sister airframes, despite the fact that they are the same make-and-model airframes, only go transcontinental. Not sure I understand why this is true, but I know that was standard policy at Delta and United - the explanation was long, involved and esoteric.

[CalBear]

Originally Posted by carlton_bach

If they'd been international flights there's a good chance someone would have caught the hijackers at security. Checks are a lot tougher.

This is actually one of the real interesting things about 9/11. The box cutters weren't "smuggled" onto the aircraft. They were carried in plain sight since there was NO rule keeping them off the aircraft. Prior to 9/11 you could bring a stunning array of items onto aircraft including screwdrivers, hammers, pocket knives, and any number of tools with possible "dual use".

That is why the whole TSA thing is a needless issue, as is the security level at U.S. airports. Both, if anything, create MORE targets for terrorism. The TSA does so by creating a false sense of protection that, if breached (and in the end ALL security precautions WILL be breached), will destroy the confidence of the flying public even worse than the events of 9/11 while the security check system itself creates the most lovely targets, hundreds, even thousands, of people in a very small area with nowhere to hide.

I was in line in San Diego a few years back and it actually made my skin crawl, there were hundreds of people in line OUTSIDE of the terminal building with hundreds more inside, behind nothing more solid than plate glass. Couple of Tangos could have made on hell of a mess.

[Dean_the_Young]

Originally Posted by Doctor What

Bitter Dean?

I'm confused as to what you mean.

What I do know, from life experience, is that sympathy only goes so far and for so long, regardless of the reason.

A person who has seen his house burn down may be supported by the charity of his neighbors for a time, but eventually charity fades and irritation begins to set in as the victim is perceived to change into a free-loader. A man who loses his car may beg and borrow rides freely for a time, but eventually will be expected to to get his own reliable source of transportation. A child who has a beloved family member die may be in mourning for a week, or even a month, but eventually he will be expected to get over it.

It's a similar thing here. The US was not unique in experiencing terrorist attacks: see European nightclubs during the eighties, many parts of of Latin America, East Asia, Africa, and so on. India has far more terrorist attacks each month than we do in a year. The idea that somehow any other man but Bush would have had an endless fountain of sympathy and political from one terrorist attack, one that wasn't even as bad as our own worst case scenarios offer, just strikes me as absurd and intellectually dishonest.

[MUC]

Originally Posted by CalBear

This is actually one of the real interesting things about 9/11. The box cutters weren't "smuggled" onto the aircraft. They were carried in plain sight since there was NO rule keeping them off the aircraft. Prior to 9/11 you could bring a stunning array of items onto aircraft including screwdrivers, hammers, pocket knives, and any number of tools with possible "dual use".

Was that general practice in the US only?

I ask this, because I recall being searched in European airports very carefully priot to 9/11.
I even had to have my umbrella been carried as luggage, because the security guy said its tip was a bit sharp and I could use it as a spear...

[carlton_bach]

Originally Posted by MUC

Was that general practice in the US only?

I ask this, because I recall being searched in European airports very carefully priot to 9/11.
I even had to have my umbrella been carried as luggage, because the security guy said its tip was a bit sharp and I could use it as a spear...

I'm not sure how strict the searches were, but pocketknives and anything that looked like a weapon were definitely out even before 9/11. You might have managed to carry a boxcutter on board as a tool (Oops - sorry, I didn't realise - I workl in logistics'), but I doubt it.

[Barry Bull]

Originally Posted by carlton_bach

I'm not sure how strict the searches were, but pocketknives and anything that looked like a weapon were definitely out even before 9/11. You might have managed to carry a boxcutter on board as a tool (Oops - sorry, I didn't realise - I workl in logistics'), but I doubt it.

My memory was no knives at all, no matter how small it is, but a small pair of safety scissors is acceptable. Now even nail clippers are banned...

[A Random Person]

Originally Posted by Barry Bull

My memory was no knives at all, no matter how small it is, but a small pair of safety scissors is acceptable. Now even nail clippers are banned...

even the rememberance day poppies are banned... what's the point of that? i can easily do more damage with my fists than a poppy.

oops shouldn't have said that, they are probably going to handcuff all the passengers now.

[CalBear]

Originally Posted by carlton_bach

I'm not sure how strict the searches were, but pocketknives and anything that looked like a weapon were definitely out even before 9/11. You might have managed to carry a boxcutter on board as a tool (Oops - sorry, I didn't realise - I workl in logistics'), but I doubt it.

In the aftermath of 9/11 this was one of the big stories. According to the reports, box cutters, screwdrivers, hammers, saws, baseball bats, ice skates etc. were all routinely passed onto aircraft.

I never tried to do it personally, I had no need for anything like that on either end of a flight, but there was, apparently, no specific rule. It might have been a judgement call sort of thing, but there was, again, according to the reports in the media, no flat rule against them.