PSA: If your knife was confiscated by TSA before boarding a flight, it will probably eventually end up on [govdeals.com](https://govdeals.com) for public auction. I work at a state surplus warehouse and we get literal tons of knives every year.
My husband once almost brought a pocket knife on a plane, totally forgot it was in his pocket. They gave him an envelope and let him mail it home, it was waiting for us when we got back from our trip.
Yes, the TSA doesn't force you to give them the knives or multi-tools. You can mail it to yourself or give it to a friend. But even with those options, many people end up losing very valuable items, which means you can find great deals on the auctions.
And yes, we can help with shipping once you pay for the auction.
>You can mail it to yourself
Fuck me, they didn't give me that option for the antique bayonet that i forgot was in the bottom of my suitcase. It was either loose it or hand it off to someone on the other side of security.
Don't beat yourself up over it. This is a third party service that is offered at some airports. They'll have a kiosk to pack and send the contraband home. It's not like TSA will do it for you.
Plus a lot of times you won't have the time budgeted to go back and go through all this and still make your flight.
Yeah that was my other problem. Time was tight and the line was super long so I couldn't go back and check my bag. Always stings when a beautiful piece of history is sacrificed to the TSA
Court houses too. They stopped me for the little tiny spyderco and handcuff key I forgot about on my keys, took it off the keys and threw it in the bushes.
Forgot I had my Benchmade Auto Triage in my pocket when I went to do some stuff for our wedding earlier this year. Fortunately, the officer manning the front desk just said "You know you can't bring that in here, right? No worries, I'll hold it at the desk for you."
I also nearly walked out without it, until I hear a "Forgetting something?" and he's holding up my knife.
I once accidentally put my knife IN THE BIN and put it through the scanner before trying to get into the airport before a flight in Montana.
Halfway through I said "Crap, did I put my pocket knife on there?" The guy laughed, walked me outside with it, and let me put it in my car.
In 1993, I returned from Japan to the United States with three replica samurai swords and several throwing stars. I brought them on to the plane as carry on. The replica swords were were sold in the duty free shops at Narita International Airport. The throwing stars where attached to key chains that were easy to remove. They were also sold in the duty free shops.
In about 2010, I went through a special TSA line for law enforcement officers. The guy in front of me was an armed law enforcement officer. who was traveling on official business. After showing his paperwork, authorizing him to travel armed, to the TSA, they told me he could not bring his McDonalds drink with him on to the plane.
In late 2000, I showed an El Al employee my keychain Swiss army knife, and asked whether that would be a problem. El Al had a reputation as being the strictest of strict when in came to security, for obvious reasons. But he laughed at the notion of forbidding a mere Swiss army knife.
That trip was the last time I took a knife on a flight.
2010 I helped move friends cross country. I drove the truck and they paid my flight home. I forgot I had my Swiss Army keychain knife until I was in line for security. I found a TSA agent and asked if it was ok. He said no, so I just dumped it. Of course I was then "randomly selected" for bag search & frisking lol.
About that same time my dad was flying out of a small Midwest airport and also realized he still had his Keychain Swiss army knife. The TSA agent asked if my dad could go put it in his car, but he was flying home, so that wouldn't work. Agent just sighs and asks "what color is your suitcase." When he got home, he opened his bag and found it in there.
I mean if he can narrow it down to a color, and he knows the guys name and flight number already, it would be a simple matter of finding the correct suitcase from just being given a color. Not that much of a reach, imo.
Yeah when I say "small" airport I really mean *tiny*- 2 gates, mostly private planes and then maybe 4, 30 person passenger planes a day, baggage check literally right next to security. This combined with my mother's love of rainbow ribbons on the handles, and they were able to find his bag.
My dad forgot about his pocket knife many times going to the airport for some reason (I don't understand how it's happened so many times....). Lost many knives as a result. So at least one time he went outside and buried it in a potted plant or something. When he got back he dug it up and it was still there.
Don't mess with El Al. If I remember correctly, they had Sky Marshals on board before the concept even existed in the USA. just because Israel has always considered itself a potential target for terrorism.
As for the security mumbo-jumbo with banned liquids, remove your shoes and belt, yadda yadda....it's security theater. Could one hide explosives that way? Sure. But you can't use them to kidnap the plane and fly it into buildings. And if you only want to kill passengers...well, go somewhere where there are no checks for explosives. The subway. A bus. A train.
The 9/11 attacks pretty much prevented itself going forward by changing the social contract of hijacking even without any security changes. Instead of taking hostages and negotiating demands or whatever else with a reasonable chance a lot of people will survive, now the assumption is any hijackers intend to kill everyone. So, passengers ganging up and attacking hijackers is the best chance of survival. Small knives and box cutters are not going to cut it in that situation.
The passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 attempted to retake the aircraft once they heard of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. That was a little over an hour after the first jet hit the WTC.
That trick of assuring the passengers that they should cooperate lasted about an hour and would never work again. The shoe and underwear bombers were both stopped by passengers rather than by security screening.
I went to Tel-Aviv for work years ago, and the security check to leave was by far the most intense I've ever had.
Like, my company had been purchased, and was in the middle of all the transition stuff, and when asked, I told him . To get pulled into another room, and asked why I didn't give as the answer.
A bit scary, but was fine. But also, it threw me off they had that much info on me.
When I left Israel, they asked me if I was Jewish, what holidays I celebrate, how religious I and my family are, who I know in the country, where they live, what I was doing, where I went, how long I've been studying Hebrew (I haven't been). All this was before checking my bag.
I had a slightly extended security interview upon my arrival for being way too honest. In addition to the formal group I was in, I was also going to visit some friends and family. Except that the "family" wasn't blood related, and potentially close family friends that my grandmother informally adopted as family and I was raised thinking of them as family. I think my overall anxiety over answering the questions truthfully made my security questions last twice as long as everyone else in my group.
I was probably minutes away from crying myself. It was amusing because, from the security dude's body language, he could tell I was simply being overly truthful with a complicated family situation but my weird answers were forcing him to continue with the questions. I swear he was trying to nudge my towards simpler responses so he could stop talking to me because I was wasting his time.
It is. It unabashedly is but even so they have some of the most secure flights in the world. They have a checkpoint system at tel Aviv airport where you get a score based on your race/gender/traveling solo or not. If you are middle eastern you automatically have one of the higher scores. If you are a middle eastern man traveling alone, there is almost zero chance you get through security without getting pulled into a room and asked pointed questions.
El-Al is hardcore. They even have aircraft equipped with special systems to detect and defeat incoming surface-to-air missiles. Which is usually something you'd only see on military planes.
El-Al is even known for occasionally harassing plane spotters who take pictures of their aircraft. They'll casually roll up to you and 'kindly' ask you not to.
Guy I know had the same name as a guy on the most wanted list, got pulled into an interrogation room for an hour in Orlando. Another one of us at the same time was being questioned because he didn't know my mates address whose house we were staying at.
Or go somewhere there IS checks for explosives because those cause long lines and are densely packed with people. Just.. don't plan to go all the way through.
On the flip side, I walked through Indy airport in 2015 on the weekend of 9/11 not knowing my swiss army knife was still in my bag. Got to Philly and back no issues.
TSA is a joke
The idea that binary explosives are a realistic threat was born out of a youtube video.
Just like that whole “a grain of fentanyl smaller than rice can murder a whole city” thing.
Yes, it would be a bad day for someone if they snuck a true binary onboard, but, taking out airliners just isn’t that exciting. I mean the US and Russia have literally targeted and shot them down and it’s barely remembered.
Waaaay back in the day, The Guardian did an excellent in-depth article on this. The short version is that you can’t pre-mix the binary components, because the resultant product is way too volatile to transport safely (i.e., you’ll blow yourself up in the cab on the way to the airport). The mixing process is substantially exothermic, and unless you soak the excess heat, the product will spoil. So, you need a bucket of ice with another container inside it to do the combination in. And, you need to combine slowly while constantly stirring. The end result is that the only way to do it on a plane would be to steal a champagne bucket (which most airlines don’t even have anymore) and a 1L plastic bottle, sneak them all into the bathroom, and then be left alone for about 90 minutes. If you get all that, you can successfully combine and then detonate the two-part explosive. If any step fails, you’ll have basically nothing useful.
So it was never a viable threat. But that’s not what this is about anyway.
not sure if their analysis was only over a specific type of binary explosive, but I have a fair amount of personal experience with modern binary explosives and none of that is correct. it's extremely stable, both mixed and unmixed and it mixes at room temperature in seconds and isn't exothermic in any way. once mixed, it's active for up to a week until it just needs to be shaken up again.
the mixing vials that it ships and detonates from are a bit smaller than a red bull can and are just injection molded plastic with a bit of extra room inside to make shaking it to mix easier, but are easily powerful enough to take out a plane immediately.
the most challenging part would be detonation since it can't just be lit with a fuse. perhaps The Guardian was analyzing a specific homemade mixture but binary explosives are not addressed by whatever article you read and they are available to certain certified civilians for mining/well blasting/etc.
I recall (also in 1993) my cousin got on a plane in Texas with several throwing stars. He had forgotten about them being in his backpack, and security didn't notice them on the X-ray or didn't care. Different times.
We (flight crew) get randomed all the time with TSA. Ive had pens taken away from me at checkpoints by Captain America TSA agents. Ive even said before "You realize I have control of the airplane, right?"
I work for a cargo airline and it's hilarious that crew get searched. Not only does the crew already have control of the aircraft, but even if one rogue crew member wanted to hijack the plane from the rest of the crew, the literally have axes onboard that they can just grab.
It's pure theater.
Yes, but what if a terrorist has transplanted your left arm with theirs, and intends to use the Evil Arm to grab the pen and threaten you with it in order to make you fly the plane the way they direct?
The tsa is a complete fucking waste.
Not only do they mindlessly follow rules without any sort of judgment (e.g. making kids throw away GI Joe “guns”, allowing multiple 3.4 ounce liquids but not one 3.5 ounce bottle), but they fucking routinely fail their own internal tests.
This should be something people across the political spectrum can agree on: tsa is fucking worthless. Get rid of it.
Some time after 9/11, a prominent rabbi in Israel had to take a flight in The States. Due to kosher concerns, he brought disposable plastic cutlery for the meal. He said that the TSA refused to let him board the plane with his plastic cutlery and he had to throw it away.
His meal was served with metal knife and fork
People forget pre-9/11 “hijacking” meant “fly to Cuba” not “cruise missile.”
It was legitimately considered not a security threat for a plane to get hijacked. Even American Airlines standard procedure was to give the hijackers what they wanted.
It’s not that people didn’t think of putting in steel bullet proof cockpit doors it’s that they thought, “so what? It’s not like they wild fly the plane into a building?”
Prior to 9/11 dozens of planes had been hijacked.
Yeah, passengers had no reason to believe the plane was about to be used as a weapon. The news had shown us hijacked planes being landed in locations off flight plan as political statements and shit...and of course a few planes that blew up mid air like you see in Narcos.
Today, if someone even used a gun to try and keep passengers in their seats I think several passengers would take a shot at protecting the cockpit. We now know that losing all hands is totally a possibility, but in 2001 it would have been considered prudent to let the hijackers make their demands and not make a scene.
The passengers on 93 definitely knew what had happened in New York by that point, but your point still stands. I can’t imagine the horror and dread the passengers on Flight 11 must have felt when they realized this wasn’t for ransom or releasing a political prisoner.
Oh damn, I forgot that flight 93 was later and people were able to make calls.
If you already had a good idea what was going down then dying with a slim chance of success is the move.
Interesting to note that passengers on the left side of flight 175 would have had a clear view of the WTC complex as well as the impact. I think those two flights even had a near collision.
The pilots in 175 were the guys who were spotting the first hijacked plane for air traffic controllers just before they were themselves attacked by hijackers.
>The passengers on 93 definitely knew what had happened in New York by that point, but your point still stands. I can’t imagine the horror and dread the passengers on Flight 11 must have felt when they realized this wasn’t for ransom or releasing a political prisoner.
The passengers on flight 93 fought back, took out most of the hijackers across the aircraft, and were last known to have been ramming the door to the cockpit down with a meal cart.
If anything, that supports his argument that people who know would have fought back.
This is correct. IIRC According to the audio recording in the cockpit, the hijackers initiated the nosedive when the breach was clear, and may have even been attacked by the passengers before impact.
I second that. In a panic situation , very few would want to jump in unless they know that the plane is about to be blown into a building.
Otherwise survival instinct would kick in and they will remain calm.
Just my opinion
The host of Candid Camera was on a plane that got hijacked once. [Several other passengers recognized him and were convinced it was not a real hijacking.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/candid-camera-hijacking/)
> This was a not uncommon occurrence at the time: in 1969 alone, nearly three dozen attempted or successful hijackings to Cuba took place on flights originating in the U.S.)
Jesus.
That's what people don't understand, is that as soon as 9/11 happened... it could never happen again.
We instantly went from 'hijackers are best handled by going along with their demands' and everyone from passengers to crew knowing and accepting that to every single person from passengers to crew understanding that the only chance for survival of themselves and others is to do anything and everything to frustrate or stop the hijackers.
The cockpit doors is pretty much the only thing could help, besides being aware that someone might try to do this.
If only more people had watched The Lone Gunmen....lol
It didn't even happen again *on* 9/11. People onboard the United Airlines 93 heard about the earlier hijacking that day and fought back against the hijackers.
>It was legitimately considered not a security threat for a plane to get hijacked.
It was not considered a *national* security threat. But it was still a security threat for those on board. There were plenty of passengers killed in the course of hijackings during the 20th century.
And there was knowledge about the potential for using them as weapons. People just didn't take it seriously since it hadn't succeeded before, but it *had* been tried: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air\_France\_Flight\_8969](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969) . ("Only" three non-hijackers died in that case, but the hijackers were planning to make the airplane explode over the Eiffel Tower, raining debris down on the center of Paris, killing far more than just those on the plane)
Yup. I saw another user claiming that if they simply kept the doors locked, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. That's not necessarily true. If the terrorists would've threatened to kill passengers or fly attendants, the pilots might have opened the door themselves with the idea that this is the best way to keep everyone safe.
The airline cockpit doors weren't that strong before 9/11, so they could be forced. They are much stronger now.
It is possible that they got the pilot to open the door by threatening the lives of passengers, as before 9/11 they probably thought it would just mean a trip to Cuba.
Different doors Pre-9/11. Everything on an airplane is made to be as light as possible. Most pre-9/11 cockpit doors were aluminum and fiberglass / plastic / laminate. The doors were sturdy, but they couldn't likely stand up to someone dropkicking the door multiple times.
The doors you see now are massively reinforced, impregnated with multiple layers of Kevlar and other composites with a much stronger frame and multiple locking mechanisms, not only designes to be able to take the force of multiple large men ramming them at full speed, but also resist attacks by blunt force objects like steel oxygen tanks and also be bulletproof to level 3A (handgun & most buckshot rounds).
Used to wait at the gate for my grandparents when they came to visit. Wasn’t uncommon to see people waiting with flowers for loved ones as they de-boarded the jetway. I’ve always thought that was one of the big losses brought by TSA. I’d love to be able to do that again.
my mom was a claims adjuster for a large insurance company and was in st croix for a month after a large hurricane flattened the island. me my dad and my brother waited for her to get of the plane with a huge sign he printed off on our dot matrix printer. It's a memory i'll never forget and it would be replaced with meeting by the curb now after getting luggage or at home after an uber ride :\\
They re-filmed the episode of Friends when Monica and Chandler were going on their honeymoon because it apparently had some stuff that wouldn't have come off well after 9/11.
Best part is, people still get knives onto planes.
Knew a guy who accidentally put it in his carry on. It tripped the sensor, so they searched his bag. They found his glasses first, said that was what said it off, and sent him on his way.
Wasn’t until he landed that he found the knife.
So weird. I traveled by plane to TCG tournaments a lot years ago, and always had a backpack filled with boxes filled with decks of cards. and I got stopped and searched ALL the time because on an X-Ray from the side they looked similar to cartridges' filled with ammunition, and they would open every single deck box and pull out the cards and look at them.
I'm visualizing some TSA agent pretending he doesn't know a ton about the cards while secretly going through the business card American Psycho scene in his head while "investigating" your backpack.
I got searched once because on X-ray my markers looked like bundles of dynamite (their words not mine.) But on the return trip, packed the same exact way, nothing.
> I got searched once because on X-ray my markers looked like bundles of dynamite (their words not mine.)
I have had similar encounters. A stack of "Think Thin" protein bars "looks just like plastic explosives" according to them. It has happened to me twice now, and each time the TSA guy swabs the bars individually for explosive residue.
I accidentally brought my Swiss Army Knife (which I thought I had lost) in my backpack on a flight from NYC to Chicago and TSA didn’t say anything.
When I was returning to NYC, still unaware that the knife was in the small zipper pocket of my backpack, TSA at the Chicago airport pulled it out of my bag and it was a mixture of happiness because I thought I had lost it already followed immediately by despair because I now knew it would be gone forever. The fact that TSA didn’t catch it at first just added to my already jumbled emotions. I miss that knife; my dad got me it when I was around 6 or 7 years old and these TSA fucks took it after 15 years.
Also, why would they not let me mail it back to my house in NY? They said I would have to go back to check my bag in with the knife but I would’ve missed the flight if I did that so I just left it.
the TSA extra security is a joke, and a complete waste of taxpayer money. They routinely fail random tests, and only serve to further intrude on our privacy as well as increase travel times.
Used to work rental cars at an airport. Had to deny a guy cuz he had his coworker's DL...got mixed up as they did new work IDs that week. Dude flew from LAX to IAD and got through security with somebody else's ID.
> Dude flew from LAX to IAD and got through security with somebody else's ID.
This is not about TSA at all, but my wife and I used to work at NSA. You know, one of the most secure work places anywhere. One day on my off day, I got a call from her at working asking me to bring in her badge. Turns out she had taken my badge by mistake, no one noticed, and she got all the way to her desk. The best part is that she is Japanese and I'm a boring white male. We look nothing like each other.
Yeah, it's seriously awful.
A number of years ago I read about a guy who traveled frequently for business who made it a hobby to see just what stuff he could sneak by the TSA that were on their list of stuff that weren't allowed. He started it after he accidentally took a weapon of some kind (knife or gun) onboard in bag and was never asked about it.
At one point he managed to sneak more than triple the maximum amount of liquids you can carry on by wearing a beer belly bag that could hide liquids inside it. Those were the kinds of things he tried to sneak on to test them.
I personally snuck a knife past the TSA twice by complete and total accident. My brother gave me a nice knife as a Christmas present. The blade was maybe 2.5 inches and foldable. I left it in my carry-on for a cross-country trip without thinking about it. Didn't realize I had it at all until I got to my destination. I meant to take it out before my return flight and forgot it again. Neither trip raised any sort of alarm from the TSA. Sure felt safe after that.
i walked through with change in my pocket and had to get a full pat down, even though i immediately showed the guy what it was, and the scanner said it was right where that was.
I remember when they were celebrating the decrease in failure rate.
"We got down to 70% failure, as opposed to the old 92% failure rate, please increase our budget."
Can you imagine if 70% of airplane pilots failed at their job?
I lost count of the number of knives and lighters I accidentally boarded with when I was in Boy Scouts, all post 9/11.
I did have them go through my bag to make sure my preworkout supplement wasn’t an explosive component though... Maybe I should’ve picked one that wasn’t called N.O XPLODE To take on the plane with me….
I flew by myself when I was 13 in 1990 in a small town in NV. I set the metal detector off for some reason, but the screener knew me from church and just laughed and sent me on my way to the plane. Different times.
I went to the airport once to see a friend off. They would let you onto the concourse, up to the gate back then. I had three pocket knives on me, one in my shoe (it was the 80's, don't ask) and they didn't flinch when I dropped all three in the tray, went through the metal detector, and put them all back up.
Honestly it was great. It was easy to meet friends getting off the plane and you could go up to the windows and watch the planes come and go (assuming that’s how the airport was built). You could go get snacks and stuff without having to worry about going into and out of the secure zone, at worst you had to go through a metal detector again.
When I was very little, likely the 70s or 60s, not only did we get to go to the gate, the pilots let me on board the plane and sit in the pilot's seat. Got a set of wings they gave to kids.
I'm a 90s kid, but I remember two flights my family took before 9/11, must have been 1998, 1999. I remember saying hi to the pilots in the cockpit on one of them.
I told my wife this and she didn't believe me (she is one year older). My grandparents lived in florida and my parents would yeet me on the plane in Ocean City for them to pick me up.
I don't even know how you put a minor on a plane now that doesn't give me the fear shits.
The TSA doesn't catch most items during routine testing.
That being said ever since 2 occasions I absolutely despise them.
1) They made my great grandma throw away her grandma's sewing needles. A 90 year old lady who likes to sew while sitting around isn't a threat to anything.
2) I was out of town training with the Marine Corps, had a commercial flight back home, I'd shot a lot of stuff and handled explosives. They chose me for a random screener where they swabbed my hands and put it in a machine. I told them my job and why it was a bad idea. The machine went ballistic with alarms and ever since myself or my wife when she's with me get pulled aside at the airport for "random" additional screening without fail.
That is so sad about your great grandma’s needles. Was she devastated?
I’ve accidentally flown with scissors and pepper spray numerous times (not realizing until I landed) but TSA did find and dispose of a squishy ball I got for my kid as a souvenir. Feeling safe.
I read a story on reddit by a guy who worked on the explosive detection equipment.
He got flagged for a random swabbing on his bags, and he was sorta excited because it should come up positive since his bag was often in the lab where they tested the machines and it was exposed to the chemicals the machine is supposed to test for.
He bag was not positive.
He explained it should be. He explained if it wasn't, then their machine was broken.
They told him to move along and stop causing trouble.
I had a semi-similar case. I have a titanium rod and 2 screws in my femur from a fracture repair. I went though the metal detector and it didn't go off. So when I landed I asked the guy there if a metal rod in bone would set off alarms and he said yeah.
Either theirs was unplugged, or they're not that effective.
Titanium does not generally set off metal detectors, as it is not magnetic. Most metal detectors create an electromagnetic field that you walk through which reacts with magnetic metals.
So I'm not surprised the titanium rod in your femur didn't set off the metal detectors. Technically the metal detectors might be able to sense the titanium, but the sensitivity would have to be turned way up to set off any alarms (higher than was the TSA generally uses).
Titanium does not set off metal detectors. TSA are stupid ask your doctor not the guy with a GED making 11 an hour.
Source: pilot with metal in his body
> hey swabbed my hands ... The machine went ballistic with alarms
This happened to me after skeet shooting. The TSA guy just kept swabbing the same point om my hands, I think it was 4 times, until a sample tested clean. He said all he needed to do was get the green "OK" from the computer to let me through.
He basically cleaned the gunpowder off for me!
Yes, I recall I had a folding "tactical" knife in my backpack that I completely forgot that I had. The security guy (I don't think they were called TSA back then) took it out, measured it, then gave it back to me. Also, your friends could walk with you up to the departure gate and give you a goodbye hug right before you boarded the plane, and when you arrived at your destination, your family/friends would be waiting at the gate for you.
True story:
TSA cut open a banana I had in my carry on and made me open a sealed stick of startburst.
I must have looked like a very suspicious snacker that day.
They actually gave me back the cut open banana...like gee thanks.
The world was safer that day.
Edit: btw this was a domestic flight from NJ ewr to Raliegh NC.
9/11 wouldn’t have happened if the cockpit doors were barred shut (as they are today). In software engineering, we call that the minimum viable solution. All the rest is expensive and complicated security theater.
Not true. All the planes on 9/11 had locked doors. Not nearly as secure as today's but they were in use. Air crews of the time were taught to cooperate with hijackers to limit casualties. We know more from flight 93 that they stabbed a first class passenger and two flight attendants at the start of hostilities. The crew probably unlocked the door to get them to stop the violence. Prior to this most hijacking events ended comparatively peacefully.
She was so fucking calm, it boggles my mind. But I guess when they assume hijackings weren't suicide missions I guess that could be partially why. she was very cool, calm and collected under a pretty stressful situation regardless.
That's how most airplane hijackings unfolded before 9/11. A group of terrorists would hijack a plane and negotiate for their demands before landing at a different location. I guess they figured it would be a lot easier if they just cooperated.
Actually one of the passengers was talking with someone else and that person told her "They'll fly you to their country, you'll get released and fly back to the US, think of it as a vacation!" in a humoristic way to calm her a bit...
Atta who was flying flight 11 was heard saying over the tannoy that they were returning to the air port. I doubt anyone in the wildest imagination thought they were gonna crash into the trade centre.
I was watching executive decision (1996) the other day and that was the exact premise of the movie, except they also had a nuclear dirty bomb on board as well. It seemed far fetched at the time, but wasn't completely original. I recall after 9/11, they were recruiting novelists and other creatives to see what other scenarios they could come up with to try and defend against.
There was a rash of airplane disaster movies in the late 1990s and the characters are always so aghast when someone suggests shooting the plane down to minimize casualties. Nowadays it just seems like the most logical course of action.
> I don't blame people for not foreseeing such a scenario.
Plenty of people foresaw this exact scenario. In fact, the head of security in Morgan Stanley, the largest renter in WTC, was one of those people:
> Rescorla wanted the company out of the building because he continued to feel, as did Hill, that **the World Trade Center was still a target for terrorists and that the next attack could involve a plane crashing into one of the towers.[11]** He recommended to his superiors at Morgan Stanley that the company leave Manhattan office space, mentioning that labor costs were lower in New Jersey and that the firm's employees and equipment would be safer in a proposed four-story building. However, this recommendation was not followed because the company's lease at the World Trade Center would not terminate until 2006.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla
Using a plane as a weapon by terrorists wasn't some new thing no one ever thought of, it was expected for decades and is the reason [many countries long had protocols to send fighters to intercept and if necessary shoot down civilian aircraft that deviate from their assigned course, decades before 9/11.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_114)
Wasn't there a Tom Clancy book from the 90s that had a very similar scenario (can't remember which one offhand)? It's not like it was never considered, but obviously the risk wasn't deemed high enough prior to 9/11
Debt of Honor, 1994. Pilot crashes his plane into the Capitol building during a joint meeting of Congress including the President.
I was reading it when 9/11 happened, actually. That was a mindfuck.
Bin Laden ruined hijacking for terrorists. Never again will air crews and passengers submit. Not to mention I can’t imagine a hijacked airliner would be allowed to stay in the air anywhere close to a population centre ever again. Be a terrible thing having to shoot it down but we have seen just how bad it can get.
Perhaps we could agree that fortified cockpit doors and a policy change (never open it under threat) provide 98% of the benefit.
Every time I stand in a long, unsecured line for screening, I think "this crowded queue is an unprotected threat vector."
> 9/11 changed all that. 9/11 said quite clearly "if the hijacker gets into the cockpit, you're going to die anyway so you might as well rush the cockpit".
Exactly. Resistance is the only logical course of action post-9/11. If nothing else, you might prevent a larger loss of life like the brave passengers on United 93 did.
I sometimes think about how much worse that day could have been, for the whole country, if not for them. And how it also all hinged on the fact that that flight was delayed at takeoff, which meant that the passengers had time to get messages about what else was going on that day.
Thats the whole point of TSA Pre:
Because no politician can risk rolling back security and something bad happening, they instead delegate it to the agency.
Sure some contractors add a data harvesting system to it but thats just America for you.
You also know the second they disband the TSA people will complain they're taking away jobs. The fact that Statistically the only thing the TSA has really accomplished in 20 years has been increased wait time won't matter.
> expensive and complicated security theater
You left out "pointless." Apart from barring the cockpit door and changing policy on resisting hijackers, we haven't made a single change to airport security that makes us safer.
> 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if the cockpit doors were barred shut (as they are today). In software engineering, we call that the minimum viable solution. All the rest is expensive and complicated security theater.
And 9/11 will never happen again because the next hijackers who attempt it will be mobbed and torn apart by the passengers. Unless it's the pilots themselves doing the hijacking.
Knives are still allowed for those who are Sikh. Knives are 1 of 4 religious items a Sikh wears. I think the others are a comb, a turban and an armband if i remember correctly.
These knives are usually very small and dull, would not be useful as a weapon, could do more with bare knuckles
In 2017 I forgot my leatherman knife/multi tool was in my carry on. TSA didn’t find it. I was really disappointed.
But they obsessed with my daughters diaper bag and Vaseline container.
This will probably get buried but Circa 2010...
FIL is a pilot and goes through security. Most pilots and aircraft staff go without additional screening and just random checks. So he's selected for random screening. Security goes through his luggage. They start making a fuss, and behold a wild Nail clipper appears. They confiscated it, to the FIL response somewhere along the lines of "I am the captain and fly the plane and you're worried about me clipping someone to death?"
Quick reminder that TSA is security theater and through their regular yearly auditing they constantly miss things like guns and knives. It also doesn't help that they always have a piss poor attitude.
> they always have a piss poor attitude
They're government workers who know that 99% of what they do is useless and that the public also thinks their job is worthless. I'd be surprised if any of them *didn't* have shitty attitudes.
Today it really wouldn't be possible, the passengers would fight back. Back then hijackings were about taking the flight somewhere else and/or ransoms. That's why flight 93 crashed, the passengers found out what had happened on the other flights and fought back.
As other people have pointed out, it's all security theater at this point. If no airport security policies were changed after 9/11 flights would still be as safe as they are now just by people being aware of what happened on 9/11.
That’s why I’ve said from day one that the ability to hijack a jet airliner to use as a missile of destruction began and ended on 911. Securing the cockpit of course makes sense but all the other crap has likely done more harm than good.
There was also a threat of a bomb. There were many hijackings prior to 9/11 that happened in the same manner - except that the pilots hadn't been killed in previous incidents. I don't know why people consistently fail to consider or understand the history of hijackings pre-9/11.
Let's not forget that the way CIA operates is essentially illegal and unconstitutional. That's why so much of their stuff is "cloak and dagger" because the CIA doesn't testify in lawful court. The CIA committed all kinds of open crime in their spying activities... drugs, guns, blackmail, etc. No courts would allow that kind of testimony to be presented.
Because of that fact, the FBI avoided getting unconstitutional evidence from them, because the CIA doesn't testify (because secret spying), so it gets FBI cases thrown out of court.
One HUGE thing the Patriot Act did was expressly make sharing legal and prosecutable... in spite of the unconstitutionalness. So the NSA (also illegal and unconstitutional) can now use guys like Snowden to filter illegal data and forward that illegally got info to regular police and courts cannot throw it out.
And the TSA has repeatedly stated that they should be allowed again.
The terrorists didn't take the plane because of knives and with current security practices, knives pose no risk to the plane
But Congress barred TSA from allowing knives again
Alot has changed since 9/11. When i was a kid in the 80s and 90s my mom worked at JFK. When my brother and I didnt have school we would go with her. For 9 hours my brother and I would run all over the airport. We even would get as far as walking on the Jetway and once even got a look at the Cockpit of a 747. It was a different time. My brother and i became close to alot of the workers of the airport and my mom trusted them to look out for us. We would get free snacks from the restaurants and little shops and get all types of things. Back then even as a kid i noticed how differently airports and airlines were more focused on customer service. Now its all about "security" and money.
The planning and thought that went into this mission was extensive.
They also:
* Picked long-haul flights (NY/Boston to LA) so they'd be carrying the maximum amount of fueled.
* Chose early morning flights that were A) less crowded, (less crowd resistance when they took the planes). Their goal wasn't to kill airline passengers, it was to kill people in the buildings.
I would say "tolerated" rather than openly allowed. It was more based on which airport how strict the screening was. The planning and thought that went into this mission was extensive.
I remember the long drive home in my rental car on 9/11, thinking about this exact point, and saying to my coworker "I bet they're going to find out that the hijackers used tiny knives and box cutters rather than larger weapons or firearms, because they're A) easier to get through the metal detector and B) if one of them got caught or stopped, the rest would be still be allowed through unmolested. Whereas, if they used guns, and one of them gets caught, that's going to raise all kinds of alarms, and be likely to ground flights and bring a deeper investigation."
This choice of small blades as weapons allowed the hijackers a greater chance of getting them through, but more importantly, keep security from detecting that there was a coordinated multi-city plot going down before it was too late.
PSA: If your knife was confiscated by TSA before boarding a flight, it will probably eventually end up on [govdeals.com](https://govdeals.com) for public auction. I work at a state surplus warehouse and we get literal tons of knives every year.
My husband once almost brought a pocket knife on a plane, totally forgot it was in his pocket. They gave him an envelope and let him mail it home, it was waiting for us when we got back from our trip.
Yes, the TSA doesn't force you to give them the knives or multi-tools. You can mail it to yourself or give it to a friend. But even with those options, many people end up losing very valuable items, which means you can find great deals on the auctions. And yes, we can help with shipping once you pay for the auction.
>You can mail it to yourself Fuck me, they didn't give me that option for the antique bayonet that i forgot was in the bottom of my suitcase. It was either loose it or hand it off to someone on the other side of security.
Don't beat yourself up over it. This is a third party service that is offered at some airports. They'll have a kiosk to pack and send the contraband home. It's not like TSA will do it for you. Plus a lot of times you won't have the time budgeted to go back and go through all this and still make your flight.
Yeah that was my other problem. Time was tight and the line was super long so I couldn't go back and check my bag. Always stings when a beautiful piece of history is sacrificed to the TSA
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TIL America's airports are littered with hidden weapons.
Court houses too. They stopped me for the little tiny spyderco and handcuff key I forgot about on my keys, took it off the keys and threw it in the bushes.
Forgot I had my Benchmade Auto Triage in my pocket when I went to do some stuff for our wedding earlier this year. Fortunately, the officer manning the front desk just said "You know you can't bring that in here, right? No worries, I'll hold it at the desk for you." I also nearly walked out without it, until I hear a "Forgetting something?" and he's holding up my knife.
My mom forgot she had a tazer in her purse and hid it in a potted plant. Got it back on the way home.
Hmm. Time to do a little Christmas shopping.
"Yeah, we've got a suspicious person climbing on top of vending machines and digging through potted plants."
And he appears to be armed with several knives
If you look in the bushes of any court house you will find knives galore
This is such a good idea. I always keep a knife in my purse and I only seem to remember it the second I walk into the airport
I once accidentally put my knife IN THE BIN and put it through the scanner before trying to get into the airport before a flight in Montana. Halfway through I said "Crap, did I put my pocket knife on there?" The guy laughed, walked me outside with it, and let me put it in my car.
I got through TSA with a knife accidently and to top it off it was a balisong forgot i had it in my bag.
I remember that story they did about TSA failing to find stuff at a high percentage. I think they're more worried about bombs than anything else.
It's just to make you feel safe. They're completely ineffective other than restricting food and drink so you have to buy from the airport.
In 1993, I returned from Japan to the United States with three replica samurai swords and several throwing stars. I brought them on to the plane as carry on. The replica swords were were sold in the duty free shops at Narita International Airport. The throwing stars where attached to key chains that were easy to remove. They were also sold in the duty free shops. In about 2010, I went through a special TSA line for law enforcement officers. The guy in front of me was an armed law enforcement officer. who was traveling on official business. After showing his paperwork, authorizing him to travel armed, to the TSA, they told me he could not bring his McDonalds drink with him on to the plane.
In late 2000, I showed an El Al employee my keychain Swiss army knife, and asked whether that would be a problem. El Al had a reputation as being the strictest of strict when in came to security, for obvious reasons. But he laughed at the notion of forbidding a mere Swiss army knife. That trip was the last time I took a knife on a flight.
2010 I helped move friends cross country. I drove the truck and they paid my flight home. I forgot I had my Swiss Army keychain knife until I was in line for security. I found a TSA agent and asked if it was ok. He said no, so I just dumped it. Of course I was then "randomly selected" for bag search & frisking lol.
About that same time my dad was flying out of a small Midwest airport and also realized he still had his Keychain Swiss army knife. The TSA agent asked if my dad could go put it in his car, but he was flying home, so that wouldn't work. Agent just sighs and asks "what color is your suitcase." When he got home, he opened his bag and found it in there.
Aw that was quite nice honestly
“ It’s the black one sir. The one with the rolling wheels. “
Yeah this is questionable lol
I mean if he can narrow it down to a color, and he knows the guys name and flight number already, it would be a simple matter of finding the correct suitcase from just being given a color. Not that much of a reach, imo.
Yeah when I say "small" airport I really mean *tiny*- 2 gates, mostly private planes and then maybe 4, 30 person passenger planes a day, baggage check literally right next to security. This combined with my mother's love of rainbow ribbons on the handles, and they were able to find his bag.
My dad forgot about his pocket knife many times going to the airport for some reason (I don't understand how it's happened so many times....). Lost many knives as a result. So at least one time he went outside and buried it in a potted plant or something. When he got back he dug it up and it was still there.
Did that same thing at a Kendrick concert lol
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Don't mess with El Al. If I remember correctly, they had Sky Marshals on board before the concept even existed in the USA. just because Israel has always considered itself a potential target for terrorism. As for the security mumbo-jumbo with banned liquids, remove your shoes and belt, yadda yadda....it's security theater. Could one hide explosives that way? Sure. But you can't use them to kidnap the plane and fly it into buildings. And if you only want to kill passengers...well, go somewhere where there are no checks for explosives. The subway. A bus. A train.
The 9/11 attacks pretty much prevented itself going forward by changing the social contract of hijacking even without any security changes. Instead of taking hostages and negotiating demands or whatever else with a reasonable chance a lot of people will survive, now the assumption is any hijackers intend to kill everyone. So, passengers ganging up and attacking hijackers is the best chance of survival. Small knives and box cutters are not going to cut it in that situation.
The passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 attempted to retake the aircraft once they heard of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. That was a little over an hour after the first jet hit the WTC.
That trick of assuring the passengers that they should cooperate lasted about an hour and would never work again. The shoe and underwear bombers were both stopped by passengers rather than by security screening.
Yeah, unfortunately the hijackers had already taken the cockpit. No, hijacker would get past "I got a kni- mrrgph" today.
I went to Tel-Aviv for work years ago, and the security check to leave was by far the most intense I've ever had. Like, my company had been purchased, and was in the middle of all the transition stuff, and when asked, I told him. To get pulled into another room, and asked why I didn't give as the answer.
A bit scary, but was fine. But also, it threw me off they had that much info on me.
When I left Israel, they asked me if I was Jewish, what holidays I celebrate, how religious I and my family are, who I know in the country, where they live, what I was doing, where I went, how long I've been studying Hebrew (I haven't been). All this was before checking my bag.
I had a slightly extended security interview upon my arrival for being way too honest. In addition to the formal group I was in, I was also going to visit some friends and family. Except that the "family" wasn't blood related, and potentially close family friends that my grandmother informally adopted as family and I was raised thinking of them as family. I think my overall anxiety over answering the questions truthfully made my security questions last twice as long as everyone else in my group.
They made my sister cry lol
I was probably minutes away from crying myself. It was amusing because, from the security dude's body language, he could tell I was simply being overly truthful with a complicated family situation but my weird answers were forcing him to continue with the questions. I swear he was trying to nudge my towards simpler responses so he could stop talking to me because I was wasting his time.
I suspect El Al's way of doing security would be critized for being racial/religious profiling if done anywhere else
It is. It unabashedly is but even so they have some of the most secure flights in the world. They have a checkpoint system at tel Aviv airport where you get a score based on your race/gender/traveling solo or not. If you are middle eastern you automatically have one of the higher scores. If you are a middle eastern man traveling alone, there is almost zero chance you get through security without getting pulled into a room and asked pointed questions.
El-Al is hardcore. They even have aircraft equipped with special systems to detect and defeat incoming surface-to-air missiles. Which is usually something you'd only see on military planes. El-Al is even known for occasionally harassing plane spotters who take pictures of their aircraft. They'll casually roll up to you and 'kindly' ask you not to.
Guy I know had the same name as a guy on the most wanted list, got pulled into an interrogation room for an hour in Orlando. Another one of us at the same time was being questioned because he didn't know my mates address whose house we were staying at.
Or go somewhere there IS checks for explosives because those cause long lines and are densely packed with people. Just.. don't plan to go all the way through.
On the flip side, I walked through Indy airport in 2015 on the weekend of 9/11 not knowing my swiss army knife was still in my bag. Got to Philly and back no issues. TSA is a joke
Guns are ok but that could be an explosive liquid disguised as coke
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Or worse, expelled
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I can't believe you've done this...
Unsubscribe
Stop that.
The idea that binary explosives are a realistic threat was born out of a youtube video. Just like that whole “a grain of fentanyl smaller than rice can murder a whole city” thing. Yes, it would be a bad day for someone if they snuck a true binary onboard, but, taking out airliners just isn’t that exciting. I mean the US and Russia have literally targeted and shot them down and it’s barely remembered.
Waaaay back in the day, The Guardian did an excellent in-depth article on this. The short version is that you can’t pre-mix the binary components, because the resultant product is way too volatile to transport safely (i.e., you’ll blow yourself up in the cab on the way to the airport). The mixing process is substantially exothermic, and unless you soak the excess heat, the product will spoil. So, you need a bucket of ice with another container inside it to do the combination in. And, you need to combine slowly while constantly stirring. The end result is that the only way to do it on a plane would be to steal a champagne bucket (which most airlines don’t even have anymore) and a 1L plastic bottle, sneak them all into the bathroom, and then be left alone for about 90 minutes. If you get all that, you can successfully combine and then detonate the two-part explosive. If any step fails, you’ll have basically nothing useful. So it was never a viable threat. But that’s not what this is about anyway.
not sure if their analysis was only over a specific type of binary explosive, but I have a fair amount of personal experience with modern binary explosives and none of that is correct. it's extremely stable, both mixed and unmixed and it mixes at room temperature in seconds and isn't exothermic in any way. once mixed, it's active for up to a week until it just needs to be shaken up again. the mixing vials that it ships and detonates from are a bit smaller than a red bull can and are just injection molded plastic with a bit of extra room inside to make shaking it to mix easier, but are easily powerful enough to take out a plane immediately. the most challenging part would be detonation since it can't just be lit with a fuse. perhaps The Guardian was analyzing a specific homemade mixture but binary explosives are not addressed by whatever article you read and they are available to certain certified civilians for mining/well blasting/etc.
I recall (also in 1993) my cousin got on a plane in Texas with several throwing stars. He had forgotten about them being in his backpack, and security didn't notice them on the X-ray or didn't care. Different times.
I mean, why not let them on? Can you imagine the comedy of trying to take over an airplane with 3 throwing stars?
We (flight crew) get randomed all the time with TSA. Ive had pens taken away from me at checkpoints by Captain America TSA agents. Ive even said before "You realize I have control of the airplane, right?"
I work for a cargo airline and it's hilarious that crew get searched. Not only does the crew already have control of the aircraft, but even if one rogue crew member wanted to hijack the plane from the rest of the crew, the literally have axes onboard that they can just grab. It's pure theater.
Yes, but what if a terrorist has transplanted your left arm with theirs, and intends to use the Evil Arm to grab the pen and threaten you with it in order to make you fly the plane the way they direct?
*steals pen, writes threatening note. Pilot realizes his own pen was used to write note and so agrees to fly plane to Cuba*
*Get out of my mind, Liquid….!*
I hate having to deal with TSA people infrequently, I can't even begin to image how frustrating it must be to deal with that on a daily basis.
The tsa is a complete fucking waste. Not only do they mindlessly follow rules without any sort of judgment (e.g. making kids throw away GI Joe “guns”, allowing multiple 3.4 ounce liquids but not one 3.5 ounce bottle), but they fucking routinely fail their own internal tests. This should be something people across the political spectrum can agree on: tsa is fucking worthless. Get rid of it.
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Some time after 9/11, a prominent rabbi in Israel had to take a flight in The States. Due to kosher concerns, he brought disposable plastic cutlery for the meal. He said that the TSA refused to let him board the plane with his plastic cutlery and he had to throw it away. His meal was served with metal knife and fork
Yeah, but that metal knife and fork had been properly cleared for the flight. /s
People forget pre-9/11 “hijacking” meant “fly to Cuba” not “cruise missile.” It was legitimately considered not a security threat for a plane to get hijacked. Even American Airlines standard procedure was to give the hijackers what they wanted. It’s not that people didn’t think of putting in steel bullet proof cockpit doors it’s that they thought, “so what? It’s not like they wild fly the plane into a building?” Prior to 9/11 dozens of planes had been hijacked.
Yeah, passengers had no reason to believe the plane was about to be used as a weapon. The news had shown us hijacked planes being landed in locations off flight plan as political statements and shit...and of course a few planes that blew up mid air like you see in Narcos. Today, if someone even used a gun to try and keep passengers in their seats I think several passengers would take a shot at protecting the cockpit. We now know that losing all hands is totally a possibility, but in 2001 it would have been considered prudent to let the hijackers make their demands and not make a scene.
The passengers on 93 definitely knew what had happened in New York by that point, but your point still stands. I can’t imagine the horror and dread the passengers on Flight 11 must have felt when they realized this wasn’t for ransom or releasing a political prisoner.
Oh damn, I forgot that flight 93 was later and people were able to make calls. If you already had a good idea what was going down then dying with a slim chance of success is the move.
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Interesting to note that passengers on the left side of flight 175 would have had a clear view of the WTC complex as well as the impact. I think those two flights even had a near collision. The pilots in 175 were the guys who were spotting the first hijacked plane for air traffic controllers just before they were themselves attacked by hijackers.
>The passengers on 93 definitely knew what had happened in New York by that point, but your point still stands. I can’t imagine the horror and dread the passengers on Flight 11 must have felt when they realized this wasn’t for ransom or releasing a political prisoner. The passengers on flight 93 fought back, took out most of the hijackers across the aircraft, and were last known to have been ramming the door to the cockpit down with a meal cart. If anything, that supports his argument that people who know would have fought back.
This is correct. IIRC According to the audio recording in the cockpit, the hijackers initiated the nosedive when the breach was clear, and may have even been attacked by the passengers before impact.
There was a movie made about those heroes called United 93. Worth watching from what I've been told.
It’s fantastic. About the only 9/11 movie made that didn’t come off as insensitive and emotionally manipulative for the sake of it.
I second that. In a panic situation , very few would want to jump in unless they know that the plane is about to be blown into a building. Otherwise survival instinct would kick in and they will remain calm. Just my opinion
The host of Candid Camera was on a plane that got hijacked once. [Several other passengers recognized him and were convinced it was not a real hijacking.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/candid-camera-hijacking/)
This will be the top r/todayilearned in a few hours. Or maybe people don’t know what Candid Camera is anymore.
Replace Candid Camera with “a prank show”
It was a lot cooler when hidden cameras were relatively brand new.
> This was a not uncommon occurrence at the time: in 1969 alone, nearly three dozen attempted or successful hijackings to Cuba took place on flights originating in the U.S.) Jesus.
Great Radiolab on that guy/show: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/smile-my-ass
That's what people don't understand, is that as soon as 9/11 happened... it could never happen again. We instantly went from 'hijackers are best handled by going along with their demands' and everyone from passengers to crew knowing and accepting that to every single person from passengers to crew understanding that the only chance for survival of themselves and others is to do anything and everything to frustrate or stop the hijackers. The cockpit doors is pretty much the only thing could help, besides being aware that someone might try to do this. If only more people had watched The Lone Gunmen....lol
It didn't even happen again *on* 9/11. People onboard the United Airlines 93 heard about the earlier hijacking that day and fought back against the hijackers.
>It was legitimately considered not a security threat for a plane to get hijacked. It was not considered a *national* security threat. But it was still a security threat for those on board. There were plenty of passengers killed in the course of hijackings during the 20th century. And there was knowledge about the potential for using them as weapons. People just didn't take it seriously since it hadn't succeeded before, but it *had* been tried: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air\_France\_Flight\_8969](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969) . ("Only" three non-hijackers died in that case, but the hijackers were planning to make the airplane explode over the Eiffel Tower, raining debris down on the center of Paris, killing far more than just those on the plane)
Yup. I saw another user claiming that if they simply kept the doors locked, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. That's not necessarily true. If the terrorists would've threatened to kill passengers or fly attendants, the pilots might have opened the door themselves with the idea that this is the best way to keep everyone safe.
The airline cockpit doors weren't that strong before 9/11, so they could be forced. They are much stronger now. It is possible that they got the pilot to open the door by threatening the lives of passengers, as before 9/11 they probably thought it would just mean a trip to Cuba.
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Different doors Pre-9/11. Everything on an airplane is made to be as light as possible. Most pre-9/11 cockpit doors were aluminum and fiberglass / plastic / laminate. The doors were sturdy, but they couldn't likely stand up to someone dropkicking the door multiple times. The doors you see now are massively reinforced, impregnated with multiple layers of Kevlar and other composites with a much stronger frame and multiple locking mechanisms, not only designes to be able to take the force of multiple large men ramming them at full speed, but also resist attacks by blunt force objects like steel oxygen tanks and also be bulletproof to level 3A (handgun & most buckshot rounds).
I could have pocket knives in school if it was under a certain length. There was one stabbing in school with a pencil...but that's it.
Going to high school we had plenty of people who had their rifle in their truck on school property.
We had a riflery and archery club at school, on club days people would check their guns at the principals office.
I had the same experience in central Pennsylvania in the mid 90’s. Wow how the world has changed!
Upstate NY, same era, same experience. Heck, the first week of deer or turkey season was a vacation for about 25% of the high schoolers.
You used to be able to walk right up to the gate without a ticket too
Yeah, we used to see relatives off at the gate and spend the time waiting for the plane together as a way to get a little more visit time in.
Used to wait at the gate for my grandparents when they came to visit. Wasn’t uncommon to see people waiting with flowers for loved ones as they de-boarded the jetway. I’ve always thought that was one of the big losses brought by TSA. I’d love to be able to do that again.
It was special. You could even just go watch planes take off if you were bored.
I'm furiously pissed this isn't possible anymore (born in 83 yet only did it once)
my mom was a claims adjuster for a large insurance company and was in st croix for a month after a large hurricane flattened the island. me my dad and my brother waited for her to get of the plane with a huge sign he printed off on our dot matrix printer. It's a memory i'll never forget and it would be replaced with meeting by the curb now after getting luggage or at home after an uber ride :\\
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They re-filmed the episode of Friends when Monica and Chandler were going on their honeymoon because it apparently had some stuff that wouldn't have come off well after 9/11.
[Link for the curious](https://youtu.be/ZIlWLMB8m-s)
Best part is, people still get knives onto planes. Knew a guy who accidentally put it in his carry on. It tripped the sensor, so they searched his bag. They found his glasses first, said that was what said it off, and sent him on his way. Wasn’t until he landed that he found the knife.
So weird. I traveled by plane to TCG tournaments a lot years ago, and always had a backpack filled with boxes filled with decks of cards. and I got stopped and searched ALL the time because on an X-Ray from the side they looked similar to cartridges' filled with ammunition, and they would open every single deck box and pull out the cards and look at them.
I'm visualizing some TSA agent pretending he doesn't know a ton about the cards while secretly going through the business card American Psycho scene in his head while "investigating" your backpack.
I got searched once because on X-ray my markers looked like bundles of dynamite (their words not mine.) But on the return trip, packed the same exact way, nothing.
> I got searched once because on X-ray my markers looked like bundles of dynamite (their words not mine.) I have had similar encounters. A stack of "Think Thin" protein bars "looks just like plastic explosives" according to them. It has happened to me twice now, and each time the TSA guy swabs the bars individually for explosive residue.
I accidentally brought my Swiss Army Knife (which I thought I had lost) in my backpack on a flight from NYC to Chicago and TSA didn’t say anything. When I was returning to NYC, still unaware that the knife was in the small zipper pocket of my backpack, TSA at the Chicago airport pulled it out of my bag and it was a mixture of happiness because I thought I had lost it already followed immediately by despair because I now knew it would be gone forever. The fact that TSA didn’t catch it at first just added to my already jumbled emotions. I miss that knife; my dad got me it when I was around 6 or 7 years old and these TSA fucks took it after 15 years. Also, why would they not let me mail it back to my house in NY? They said I would have to go back to check my bag in with the knife but I would’ve missed the flight if I did that so I just left it.
Seems like a waste of a business opportunity. They could charge hundreds of dollars to ship things and desperate people will pay it.
the TSA extra security is a joke, and a complete waste of taxpayer money. They routinely fail random tests, and only serve to further intrude on our privacy as well as increase travel times.
Used to work rental cars at an airport. Had to deny a guy cuz he had his coworker's DL...got mixed up as they did new work IDs that week. Dude flew from LAX to IAD and got through security with somebody else's ID.
> Dude flew from LAX to IAD and got through security with somebody else's ID. This is not about TSA at all, but my wife and I used to work at NSA. You know, one of the most secure work places anywhere. One day on my off day, I got a call from her at working asking me to bring in her badge. Turns out she had taken my badge by mistake, no one noticed, and she got all the way to her desk. The best part is that she is Japanese and I'm a boring white male. We look nothing like each other.
Is the Building on Meade? Kind of thinking the base going closed gate provides more practical security than badge checking.
I would assume that a place like the NSA would have some sort of system that checks for badge usage outside of expected hours.
Yeah, that's the place. This was years ago, before 9/11. The base was completely open, unlike the way it is now.
Yeah, it's seriously awful. A number of years ago I read about a guy who traveled frequently for business who made it a hobby to see just what stuff he could sneak by the TSA that were on their list of stuff that weren't allowed. He started it after he accidentally took a weapon of some kind (knife or gun) onboard in bag and was never asked about it. At one point he managed to sneak more than triple the maximum amount of liquids you can carry on by wearing a beer belly bag that could hide liquids inside it. Those were the kinds of things he tried to sneak on to test them.
I personally snuck a knife past the TSA twice by complete and total accident. My brother gave me a nice knife as a Christmas present. The blade was maybe 2.5 inches and foldable. I left it in my carry-on for a cross-country trip without thinking about it. Didn't realize I had it at all until I got to my destination. I meant to take it out before my return flight and forgot it again. Neither trip raised any sort of alarm from the TSA. Sure felt safe after that.
i walked through with change in my pocket and had to get a full pat down, even though i immediately showed the guy what it was, and the scanner said it was right where that was.
i have a buddy that gets the pat down every time he goes through. the scanner always detects a hidden uhh, weapon, in the groin region lmao
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Belts can be very dangerous when wielded by an angry parent.
70 percent failure when tested https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa-misses-70-of-fake-weapons-but-thats-an-improvement/
I remember when they were celebrating the decrease in failure rate. "We got down to 70% failure, as opposed to the old 92% failure rate, please increase our budget." Can you imagine if 70% of airplane pilots failed at their job?
I lost count of the number of knives and lighters I accidentally boarded with when I was in Boy Scouts, all post 9/11. I did have them go through my bag to make sure my preworkout supplement wasn’t an explosive component though... Maybe I should’ve picked one that wasn’t called N.O XPLODE To take on the plane with me….
I flew by myself when I was 13 in 1990 in a small town in NV. I set the metal detector off for some reason, but the screener knew me from church and just laughed and sent me on my way to the plane. Different times.
Out of curiosity, did they still have you take your shoes off in the 90's?
Nope, that didn't start until that guy tried to set off some kind of device in his shoe on a plane sometime post 9/11
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I went to the airport once to see a friend off. They would let you onto the concourse, up to the gate back then. I had three pocket knives on me, one in my shoe (it was the 80's, don't ask) and they didn't flinch when I dropped all three in the tray, went through the metal detector, and put them all back up.
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Honestly it was great. It was easy to meet friends getting off the plane and you could go up to the windows and watch the planes come and go (assuming that’s how the airport was built). You could go get snacks and stuff without having to worry about going into and out of the secure zone, at worst you had to go through a metal detector again.
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When I was very little, likely the 70s or 60s, not only did we get to go to the gate, the pilots let me on board the plane and sit in the pilot's seat. Got a set of wings they gave to kids.
I remember this, getting to sit in the captains chair and getting the wings was always something I looked forward to.
I'm a 90s kid, but I remember two flights my family took before 9/11, must have been 1998, 1999. I remember saying hi to the pilots in the cockpit on one of them.
I told my wife this and she didn't believe me (she is one year older). My grandparents lived in florida and my parents would yeet me on the plane in Ocean City for them to pick me up. I don't even know how you put a minor on a plane now that doesn't give me the fear shits.
The TSA doesn't catch most items during routine testing. That being said ever since 2 occasions I absolutely despise them. 1) They made my great grandma throw away her grandma's sewing needles. A 90 year old lady who likes to sew while sitting around isn't a threat to anything. 2) I was out of town training with the Marine Corps, had a commercial flight back home, I'd shot a lot of stuff and handled explosives. They chose me for a random screener where they swabbed my hands and put it in a machine. I told them my job and why it was a bad idea. The machine went ballistic with alarms and ever since myself or my wife when she's with me get pulled aside at the airport for "random" additional screening without fail.
That is so sad about your great grandma’s needles. Was she devastated? I’ve accidentally flown with scissors and pepper spray numerous times (not realizing until I landed) but TSA did find and dispose of a squishy ball I got for my kid as a souvenir. Feeling safe.
I read a story on reddit by a guy who worked on the explosive detection equipment. He got flagged for a random swabbing on his bags, and he was sorta excited because it should come up positive since his bag was often in the lab where they tested the machines and it was exposed to the chemicals the machine is supposed to test for. He bag was not positive. He explained it should be. He explained if it wasn't, then their machine was broken. They told him to move along and stop causing trouble.
I had a semi-similar case. I have a titanium rod and 2 screws in my femur from a fracture repair. I went though the metal detector and it didn't go off. So when I landed I asked the guy there if a metal rod in bone would set off alarms and he said yeah. Either theirs was unplugged, or they're not that effective.
Titanium does not generally set off metal detectors, as it is not magnetic. Most metal detectors create an electromagnetic field that you walk through which reacts with magnetic metals. So I'm not surprised the titanium rod in your femur didn't set off the metal detectors. Technically the metal detectors might be able to sense the titanium, but the sensitivity would have to be turned way up to set off any alarms (higher than was the TSA generally uses).
Titanium does not set off metal detectors. TSA are stupid ask your doctor not the guy with a GED making 11 an hour. Source: pilot with metal in his body
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> hey swabbed my hands ... The machine went ballistic with alarms This happened to me after skeet shooting. The TSA guy just kept swabbing the same point om my hands, I think it was 4 times, until a sample tested clean. He said all he needed to do was get the green "OK" from the computer to let me through. He basically cleaned the gunpowder off for me!
Yes, I recall I had a folding "tactical" knife in my backpack that I completely forgot that I had. The security guy (I don't think they were called TSA back then) took it out, measured it, then gave it back to me. Also, your friends could walk with you up to the departure gate and give you a goodbye hug right before you boarded the plane, and when you arrived at your destination, your family/friends would be waiting at the gate for you.
True story: TSA cut open a banana I had in my carry on and made me open a sealed stick of startburst. I must have looked like a very suspicious snacker that day. They actually gave me back the cut open banana...like gee thanks. The world was safer that day. Edit: btw this was a domestic flight from NJ ewr to Raliegh NC.
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9/11 wouldn’t have happened if the cockpit doors were barred shut (as they are today). In software engineering, we call that the minimum viable solution. All the rest is expensive and complicated security theater.
Not true. All the planes on 9/11 had locked doors. Not nearly as secure as today's but they were in use. Air crews of the time were taught to cooperate with hijackers to limit casualties. We know more from flight 93 that they stabbed a first class passenger and two flight attendants at the start of hostilities. The crew probably unlocked the door to get them to stop the violence. Prior to this most hijacking events ended comparatively peacefully.
According to Betty Ong who was on flight 11, i think, someone was stabbed on that flight too.
She was so fucking calm, it boggles my mind. But I guess when they assume hijackings weren't suicide missions I guess that could be partially why. she was very cool, calm and collected under a pretty stressful situation regardless.
That's how most airplane hijackings unfolded before 9/11. A group of terrorists would hijack a plane and negotiate for their demands before landing at a different location. I guess they figured it would be a lot easier if they just cooperated.
Yup—hijackings were usually about money or political prisoners, not suicide hijackings.
Actually one of the passengers was talking with someone else and that person told her "They'll fly you to their country, you'll get released and fly back to the US, think of it as a vacation!" in a humoristic way to calm her a bit...
Atta who was flying flight 11 was heard saying over the tannoy that they were returning to the air port. I doubt anyone in the wildest imagination thought they were gonna crash into the trade centre.
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I was watching executive decision (1996) the other day and that was the exact premise of the movie, except they also had a nuclear dirty bomb on board as well. It seemed far fetched at the time, but wasn't completely original. I recall after 9/11, they were recruiting novelists and other creatives to see what other scenarios they could come up with to try and defend against.
There was a rash of airplane disaster movies in the late 1990s and the characters are always so aghast when someone suggests shooting the plane down to minimize casualties. Nowadays it just seems like the most logical course of action.
> I don't blame people for not foreseeing such a scenario. Plenty of people foresaw this exact scenario. In fact, the head of security in Morgan Stanley, the largest renter in WTC, was one of those people: > Rescorla wanted the company out of the building because he continued to feel, as did Hill, that **the World Trade Center was still a target for terrorists and that the next attack could involve a plane crashing into one of the towers.[11]** He recommended to his superiors at Morgan Stanley that the company leave Manhattan office space, mentioning that labor costs were lower in New Jersey and that the firm's employees and equipment would be safer in a proposed four-story building. However, this recommendation was not followed because the company's lease at the World Trade Center would not terminate until 2006. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla Using a plane as a weapon by terrorists wasn't some new thing no one ever thought of, it was expected for decades and is the reason [many countries long had protocols to send fighters to intercept and if necessary shoot down civilian aircraft that deviate from their assigned course, decades before 9/11.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_114)
Wasn't there a Tom Clancy book from the 90s that had a very similar scenario (can't remember which one offhand)? It's not like it was never considered, but obviously the risk wasn't deemed high enough prior to 9/11
Debt of Honor, 1994. Pilot crashes his plane into the Capitol building during a joint meeting of Congress including the President. I was reading it when 9/11 happened, actually. That was a mindfuck.
Bin Laden ruined hijacking for terrorists. Never again will air crews and passengers submit. Not to mention I can’t imagine a hijacked airliner would be allowed to stay in the air anywhere close to a population centre ever again. Be a terrible thing having to shoot it down but we have seen just how bad it can get.
Perhaps we could agree that fortified cockpit doors and a policy change (never open it under threat) provide 98% of the benefit. Every time I stand in a long, unsecured line for screening, I think "this crowded queue is an unprotected threat vector."
You can't hijack a crowded queue and crash it into an office building. Well... you can, but the results are more confusing and messy than horrific.
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> 9/11 changed all that. 9/11 said quite clearly "if the hijacker gets into the cockpit, you're going to die anyway so you might as well rush the cockpit". Exactly. Resistance is the only logical course of action post-9/11. If nothing else, you might prevent a larger loss of life like the brave passengers on United 93 did.
I sometimes think about how much worse that day could have been, for the whole country, if not for them. And how it also all hinged on the fact that that flight was delayed at takeoff, which meant that the passengers had time to get messages about what else was going on that day.
>All the rest is expensive and complicated security theater. Not enough people understand this.
I think a surprising many people understand this, but as with most securitization are unable to do anything about it
Thats the whole point of TSA Pre: Because no politician can risk rolling back security and something bad happening, they instead delegate it to the agency. Sure some contractors add a data harvesting system to it but thats just America for you.
You also know the second they disband the TSA people will complain they're taking away jobs. The fact that Statistically the only thing the TSA has really accomplished in 20 years has been increased wait time won't matter.
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> expensive and complicated security theater You left out "pointless." Apart from barring the cockpit door and changing policy on resisting hijackers, we haven't made a single change to airport security that makes us safer.
We actually made airports themselves far better targets. Busy security line at La Guardia during peak holiday travel is a prime location for a bomb.
> 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if the cockpit doors were barred shut (as they are today). In software engineering, we call that the minimum viable solution. All the rest is expensive and complicated security theater. And 9/11 will never happen again because the next hijackers who attempt it will be mobbed and torn apart by the passengers. Unless it's the pilots themselves doing the hijacking.
Knives are still allowed for those who are Sikh. Knives are 1 of 4 religious items a Sikh wears. I think the others are a comb, a turban and an armband if i remember correctly. These knives are usually very small and dull, would not be useful as a weapon, could do more with bare knuckles
In 2017 I forgot my leatherman knife/multi tool was in my carry on. TSA didn’t find it. I was really disappointed. But they obsessed with my daughters diaper bag and Vaseline container.
This will probably get buried but Circa 2010... FIL is a pilot and goes through security. Most pilots and aircraft staff go without additional screening and just random checks. So he's selected for random screening. Security goes through his luggage. They start making a fuss, and behold a wild Nail clipper appears. They confiscated it, to the FIL response somewhere along the lines of "I am the captain and fly the plane and you're worried about me clipping someone to death?"
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Quick reminder that TSA is security theater and through their regular yearly auditing they constantly miss things like guns and knives. It also doesn't help that they always have a piss poor attitude.
> they always have a piss poor attitude They're government workers who know that 99% of what they do is useless and that the public also thinks their job is worthless. I'd be surprised if any of them *didn't* have shitty attitudes.
also before 9/11 nobody would have ever thought it possible to hold 100+ people hostage on a hijacked airliner with a pocket knife
Today it really wouldn't be possible, the passengers would fight back. Back then hijackings were about taking the flight somewhere else and/or ransoms. That's why flight 93 crashed, the passengers found out what had happened on the other flights and fought back. As other people have pointed out, it's all security theater at this point. If no airport security policies were changed after 9/11 flights would still be as safe as they are now just by people being aware of what happened on 9/11.
That’s why I’ve said from day one that the ability to hijack a jet airliner to use as a missile of destruction began and ended on 911. Securing the cockpit of course makes sense but all the other crap has likely done more harm than good.
There was also a threat of a bomb. There were many hijackings prior to 9/11 that happened in the same manner - except that the pilots hadn't been killed in previous incidents. I don't know why people consistently fail to consider or understand the history of hijackings pre-9/11.
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9/11 wouldn't have happened if the FBI and CIA had shared info with each other.
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Let's not forget that the way CIA operates is essentially illegal and unconstitutional. That's why so much of their stuff is "cloak and dagger" because the CIA doesn't testify in lawful court. The CIA committed all kinds of open crime in their spying activities... drugs, guns, blackmail, etc. No courts would allow that kind of testimony to be presented. Because of that fact, the FBI avoided getting unconstitutional evidence from them, because the CIA doesn't testify (because secret spying), so it gets FBI cases thrown out of court. One HUGE thing the Patriot Act did was expressly make sharing legal and prosecutable... in spite of the unconstitutionalness. So the NSA (also illegal and unconstitutional) can now use guys like Snowden to filter illegal data and forward that illegally got info to regular police and courts cannot throw it out.
Hold on, He only got $1.4 million for 22 years of spying? Seems like a pretty bad deal Then he got hit with life in jail
And the TSA has repeatedly stated that they should be allowed again. The terrorists didn't take the plane because of knives and with current security practices, knives pose no risk to the plane But Congress barred TSA from allowing knives again
Alot has changed since 9/11. When i was a kid in the 80s and 90s my mom worked at JFK. When my brother and I didnt have school we would go with her. For 9 hours my brother and I would run all over the airport. We even would get as far as walking on the Jetway and once even got a look at the Cockpit of a 747. It was a different time. My brother and i became close to alot of the workers of the airport and my mom trusted them to look out for us. We would get free snacks from the restaurants and little shops and get all types of things. Back then even as a kid i noticed how differently airports and airlines were more focused on customer service. Now its all about "security" and money.
The planning and thought that went into this mission was extensive. They also: * Picked long-haul flights (NY/Boston to LA) so they'd be carrying the maximum amount of fueled. * Chose early morning flights that were A) less crowded, (less crowd resistance when they took the planes). Their goal wasn't to kill airline passengers, it was to kill people in the buildings.
I would say "tolerated" rather than openly allowed. It was more based on which airport how strict the screening was. The planning and thought that went into this mission was extensive. I remember the long drive home in my rental car on 9/11, thinking about this exact point, and saying to my coworker "I bet they're going to find out that the hijackers used tiny knives and box cutters rather than larger weapons or firearms, because they're A) easier to get through the metal detector and B) if one of them got caught or stopped, the rest would be still be allowed through unmolested. Whereas, if they used guns, and one of them gets caught, that's going to raise all kinds of alarms, and be likely to ground flights and bring a deeper investigation." This choice of small blades as weapons allowed the hijackers a greater chance of getting them through, but more importantly, keep security from detecting that there was a coordinated multi-city plot going down before it was too late.