9/11 even more destructive...

Vuu

Banned
It was bad enough as it was, and all al-Qaeda needed was to "run up the score", so to speak. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed went to college in the US at a historically black university--it isn't improbable he might've been introduced to Memphis, Tennessee, and the numerous key sites both cultural, with attacks on Beale Street and Graceland able to hit the heart of Americans, along with monumental architecture to be destroyed for media effect--the Memphis Pyramid, in 2001 home of the Memphis Grizzlies NBA team. and economic (bridges across the Mississippi and especially Memphis International, in 2001 a very busy airport for both passengers and especially for cargo, and one which had been already targetted for a terrorist attack in Auburn Calloway's FedEx Flight 705 hijacking.

As for the capital, the easiest and most deadly attack al-Qaeda could have done in the Capital area was doing an OKC-style bombing one of the airports in DC or Baltimore at a busy moment and killing a thousand people easily. These airports are major hubs and destroying one of them would cause huge damage both short term and long-term.

It is very fortunate al-Qaeda did what they did and not any number of plans they might have devised. A worse 9/11 is easy to imagine.


Destroy the Bass Pro Shops pyramid? What a loss to the meme community

Anyways why not hit a nuke plant and ruin the entire area? Or a big dam and fuck up a lot potentially
 
All the folks postulating truck bombs and nukes are forgetting that the main reason the 9/11 conspirators were so successful was because they were NOT using anything other than the readily available commercial airliners as weapons. Once they start accumulating explosives and other red flag gear their chance of success drops dramatically. Of course they could have tried to hijack more aircraft.
 
One idea, assuming that the WTC and Pentagon are hit same as OTL, have Flight 93, if it can't get to Washington DC, hit something or anything else along or near it's flight path. Think less of a preplanned target and more a case of finding a target of opportunity.

OTL at one point Flight 93 was near Cleveland, Ohio. ATC for the airport in Cleveland either talked or heard communications from Flight 93. Maybe the hijackers decide their odds of hitting DC are slim, so they find one of the tall building in downtown Cleveland, pick one at random, and hit it.

Probably not going to cause a lot of additional deaths, say an additional 250 to 500 at the outside. OTOH, adding a third city to the list one in the rust belt region, would probably have a more profound impact on middle America. I could see some interesting cultural butterflies as a result as well.
 
Maybe a suicide boat attack could cripple the Panama Canal? Not really the same effect terror-wise, but it would screw with the economy.
 
What if they had done it during the fall on a Saturday or Sunday and flown them into packed football stadiums. The death toll and pictures would have been horrific.
 

MatthewB

Banned
9/11 as was already set the bar too high for future terrorists. We hardly pay attention nowadays. A worse 9/11 would make it harder for terrorists to keep our attention.
 
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