Flight 93 on 9/11

Just seconds before the hijackers stormed the cockpit on September 11th, 2001, the captain of Flight 93 received a warning message from the FAA that said something to the effect of "Beware cockpit intrusion, two aircraft have hit the World Trade Center."

He then hears a knock on the door, and decides to open it.

What if..... the captain had heeded those warnings?

My guess is the terrorists would have kept trying until they got through. Perhaps they would have lied and said they had a bomb on board. But if the captain had kept the cockpit closed a little longer, he would have received the order to ground all planes after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.

I think it is entirely possible the four hijackers would have been caught. What would this have meant for the war on terror? Might we have caught Osama Bin Laden by now?
 
I would hope that it would make the "Crime against Humanity" view more influentual than "War on Terror" but remember who was in the White House.

I strongly doubt that those planning to take over flight 93 had any means of contacting Bin Laden or any better information than the US government about his physical whereabouts.
 
I would hope that it would make the "Crime against Humanity" view more influentual than "War on Terror" but remember who was in the White House.

I strongly doubt that those planning to take over flight 93 had any means of contacting Bin Laden or any better information than the US government about his physical whereabouts.

Maybe they didn't..... but we could have gotten some other useful information out of them.

Unless, of course, it came down to having to use "torture," because as we all know, the US "doesn't do that." :rolleyes:
 
Maybe they didn't..... but we could have gotten some other useful information out of them.

Unless, of course, it came down to having to use "torture," because as we all know, the US "doesn't do that." :rolleyes:

Actually the hijackers probably had very little information of intelligence value due to the cellular nature of AQ.
 
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Given the nature of construction of airliner cockpit doors then, they'd have got in sooner rather than later.
If putting a knife to a stewardesses throat in view of the peep hole in the door didn't do it.
Or threatening to detonate that 'bomb' of theirs.
Despite what warnings the crew might have received, the mindset now would not allow it, but the flight crew of UA93 were still really living, as you'd expect, in the pre '9/11' world at that point.

Of course, had UA93 departed on time, the terrorists would have succeeded, the pax and remaining crew would not have heard relatives warn them on the seat back 'AirPhones' about the other attacks, since the plan was to have all four hit over a short time period.
In the case of UA93, almost certainly the Capitol Building.
 
The 9/11 conspiracy nuts have a much harder time trying to convince people of their lunacy. Little else changes.
 
Given the nature of construction of airliner cockpit doors then, they'd have got in sooner rather than later.
If putting a knife to a stewardesses throat in view of the peep hole in the door didn't do it.
Or threatening to detonate that 'bomb' of theirs.
Despite what warnings the crew might have received, the mindset now would not allow it, but the flight crew of UA93 were still really living, as you'd expect, in the pre '9/11' world at that point.

Uh the plane is the Pilots best weapon. They simply pull the throttle back and go into a steep hard climb which would send the Hijackers tumbling back. Both pilots were Vietnam fighter pilot vets. They knew every trick to keep the hijackers off guard just by maneuvering the plane.
 
Uh the plane is the Pilots best weapon. They simply pull the throttle back and go into a steep hard climb which would send the Hijackers tumbling back. Both pilots were Vietnam fighter pilot vets. They knew every trick to keep the hijackers off guard just by maneuvering the plane.

Indeed. Even pre-September 11, the door to the cockpit wasn't just a flimsy shard of plastic. It provided real security to the cockpit, except for the fact that too often the security that it afforded was neglected. I agree with Thomas--if the pilots had had a little bit more warning, they would have been able to keep the hijackers off guard long enough for some of the crew or even some passengers to overwhelm them.
 
Weren't those the hijackers that started to gut the flight attendants as a way to press the captain to open the door?
 
Weren't those the hijackers that started to gut the flight attendants as a way to press the captain to open the door?

Not that I recall ... I remember hearing about the flight attendants participating in the passenger revolt themselves. In any case, if the hijackers did threaten to kill the flight attendants if the pilots didn't open the door, we have a moral dilemma that I don't think can be solved here. According to this TL, the pilots knew of the other hijackings that day, and could probably make the connections. Would they save the flight attendants or save the whole plane? Who knows.
 
Not that I recall ... I remember hearing about the flight attendants participating in the passenger revolt themselves. In any case, if the hijackers did threaten to kill the flight attendants if the pilots didn't open the door, we have a moral dilemma that I don't think can be solved here. According to this TL, the pilots knew of the other hijackings that day, and could probably make the connections. Would they save the flight attendants or save the whole plane? Who knows.

They save both by that hard climb I mentioned.
 
UA93

Whatever they could have done, that crew, whatever their background, were commercial airline pilots.
Who like just about every other ones everywhere, had pre-conceptions, from the then 25 year experience of hi-jackings.
Throwing the plane around-at great risk to the pax and cabin crew, would not likely have occured to them.
Before that day.

But, in that quarter of a century of hi-jacks, one event seemed to have been ignored.
The attempt in Dec 1994 to crash a hi-jacked A310 on to Paris.
Since this botched attempt required a re-fuel stop, the French Special forces stormed the aircraft.
Then the extent of the plot was revealed.

One side learnt from this, the other seemed to either not know about it or just ignored it.
That side being the US Government, Federal Aviation Authority and various intel organisations.
 
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