Kinda wild, I vividly remember getting on a plane to Disney with my grandparents as a child (Pre 9/11). My grandpa had a swiss army knife on him when we went through security. I asked him how he was able to get that through, and he said it’s a small knife; nothing to worry about. It’s legal as long as it’s smaller than my palm. I said what if someone brought a knife like that and stabbed the pilot. He laughed it off and said I watch too much TV. Then 9/11 happened and guess how they did it? How did 8 year old me have more sense than whoever was running airports in those days?
I accidentally brought handcuffs into a flight on August 2001. The TSA agent who found them asked what I planned to do with them.
Being a teenager, the answer was obviously that I kept them in my jacket to pull them out and show my high-school friends how quirky and cool I was. But being a teenager, I didn’t realize how endearing that response would be, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which was somehow better and worse.
“I’m visiting my girlfriend!”
She gave me a slow blink and said “Well, alright then, go get your freak on!” (Or something of a similar sentiment - time has robbed me of the exact phasing.)
Airport security pre-9/11 was pretty horrendous. Hijackings were surprisingly common compared to today, but the difference was that it was usually for a ransom and/or demanding that the plane go somewhere else. This led to a general policy of just going along with hijackers and letting the authorities deal with it later. The most famous example of this kind of scenario is D. B. Cooper.
An important thing to remember about Aviation in general is that every lesson is written in blood. This leads me to PSA 1771. In 1987 a disgruntled former airline employee got on plane, shot his boss and the flight crew, then intentionally crashed the plane killing everyone else. This incident was entirely caused by the poor security practices at the time. The perpetrator’s employee ID hadn’t been taken back when he was fired and because he had those credentials he was able to get on the plane without being searched.
Pre-9/11 security in American airports was wild to me. There had been a load of plane hijackings in Europe before my time so it was always fairly locked down but I distinctly remember San Diego airport you could basically walk in off the street and nearly be at the plane when people were disembarking in the late 90s.
I used to get really really high as a teenager and go walk around the airport and people watch as a teenager. No one checked shit. And this was at one of the busiest airports in the world.
It had much less to do with the attackers race, and much more to do with the fact that prior to 9/11, aircraft hijackings were primarily done for ransom, not to use the plane as a weapon for a mass casualty event.
Yeah, before that it was uncommon enough and the stakes were so low that it was probably just cheaper to comp everyone involved and call it the cost of doing business.
Just a reminder that the 9/11 attackers did it with knives.
Box cutters
Kinda wild, I vividly remember getting on a plane to Disney with my grandparents as a child (Pre 9/11). My grandpa had a swiss army knife on him when we went through security. I asked him how he was able to get that through, and he said it’s a small knife; nothing to worry about. It’s legal as long as it’s smaller than my palm. I said what if someone brought a knife like that and stabbed the pilot. He laughed it off and said I watch too much TV. Then 9/11 happened and guess how they did it? How did 8 year old me have more sense than whoever was running airports in those days?
I accidentally brought handcuffs into a flight on August 2001. The TSA agent who found them asked what I planned to do with them.
Being a teenager, the answer was obviously that I kept them in my jacket to pull them out and show my high-school friends how quirky and cool I was. But being a teenager, I didn’t realize how endearing that response would be, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which was somehow better and worse.
“I’m visiting my girlfriend!”
She gave me a slow blink and said “Well, alright then, go get your freak on!” (Or something of a similar sentiment - time has robbed me of the exact phasing.)
Airport security pre-9/11 was pretty horrendous. Hijackings were surprisingly common compared to today, but the difference was that it was usually for a ransom and/or demanding that the plane go somewhere else. This led to a general policy of just going along with hijackers and letting the authorities deal with it later. The most famous example of this kind of scenario is D. B. Cooper.
An important thing to remember about Aviation in general is that every lesson is written in blood. This leads me to PSA 1771. In 1987 a disgruntled former airline employee got on plane, shot his boss and the flight crew, then intentionally crashed the plane killing everyone else. This incident was entirely caused by the poor security practices at the time. The perpetrator’s employee ID hadn’t been taken back when he was fired and because he had those credentials he was able to get on the plane without being searched.
“Where do you wanna go man?”
“Right where this plane was meant to go FOUR HOURS AGO”
Pre-9/11 security in American airports was wild to me. There had been a load of plane hijackings in Europe before my time so it was always fairly locked down but I distinctly remember San Diego airport you could basically walk in off the street and nearly be at the plane when people were disembarking in the late 90s.
I used to get really really high as a teenager and go walk around the airport and people watch as a teenager. No one checked shit. And this was at one of the busiest airports in the world.
Yeah we had a handful of hijackings in the US too.
We didn’t care until brown people did it.
It had much less to do with the attackers race, and much more to do with the fact that prior to 9/11, aircraft hijackings were primarily done for ransom, not to use the plane as a weapon for a mass casualty event.
Yeah, before that it was uncommon enough and the stakes were so low that it was probably just cheaper to comp everyone involved and call it the cost of doing business.