Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends
Maybe, since Thoreau can’t move his arms on the plane, he hasn’t found this Roderick Long link yet:
What solved the problem in yesterday’s terror attack? A passenger getting out of his seat to tackle the terrorist.
So what’s the government’s plan for handling such problems in the future? Putting more restrictions on passengers’ freedom to get out of their seats.
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Comment by Thoreau —
December 27, 2009 @ 11:52 am
How much you wanna bet that they guy who tackled the failed bomber winds up in a watch list?
Comment by Ian —
December 27, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
My guess here is that if we ever learn the whole story, it will really turn out that it was mostly just luck/bad guy incompetence that saved the plane. Explosives don’t normally burn before exploding…they just explode. So some combination of poor mixing, uninformed chemistry or even (dare I say it) effective screening policies (how much volume can you strap to your leg undetected anyway? Perhaps in hoping to stay unnoticed, he simply used not enough) prevented the mixture from exploding. Not that I want to take anything away from the guy who leapt over seats to extinguish the flames with his bare hands. If I was on that plane I wouldn’t want to bet my life on the above analysis, and I hope there’ll be someone like him on any flight I take in the future.
I would also say one of my first thoughts after this incident and the shoe bomber is why didn’t they go into the bathroom to do it? Sure there’s a smoke detector in there, but it’s still going to buy you a lot more time than you’ll get lighting a match out in the open for everyone to see. In that sense, you have to admit at least they’re being a little proactive here by cutting off the bathroom trips (I guess the significance of the last hour of flight is that the wreckage is more likely to hit a population center then)
Comment by Mike Lorrey —
December 30, 2009 @ 11:10 pm
Personally I think the security apparatus intentionally let him fly. The Patriot Act is up for renewal and they needed more excuses to justify extending its restrictions.