All US planes being searched

Fox News Cable | Oct 17, 2003

[TomGuy]

Box cutters, bleach found in 2 packages on Southwest Airlines plane.

All commercial planes in US currently being searched.

developing............

[Destro]

Somebody wants to prove security isn't good, but the fact that they found them disproves it.

Wrong. Finding them after the plane landed is a sign that they were smuggled aboard and thus a failure.

[justshutupandtakeit]

So we will have a million great stories to read, I don't have a problem with that. :^)

[muggs]

Nearly knocked myself out once peeing into a toilet my wife had filled with bleach!!

When my son lived at home, he always b*tched up a storm when that happened.

[Endeavor]

throw it in your eyes

[petercooper]

"For example, an airline might find that providing pre 09.11 levels of security costs only $50 million a year, with a risk of one terrorist failure every five years, which would cost the airline $100 million. The airline might also find that for $100 million a year it can provide iron clad security with a zero failure rate over a five year period. Thus, the airline can provide minimum security at a cost of $350 million over five years, including the cost of one security failure, or $500 million over five years with zero security failures. Which security model do you thing the airline would choose?"

this is fuzzy math

[Orangedog]

Would the French supply a terrorist with the capability to shoot our planes down.

Did Rose Kennedy own a black dress?! ;)

[null and void]

As opposed to the Federal government's TSA, which hires who? Has no fiduciary liability, no criminal liability, no possibility of any disiplinary actions for a major failure, and is at the mercy of a hostile congress for funding and tools?

Geeee, I dunno, which is better?

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

Go ahead and try to blind 168 passengers on a 757 with bleach and see how far you get before being hog tied and beat severely.

You don't need to blind all of them. All you need to do is block passengers from approaching the front of the plane. I think with enough hijackers (note that Flight 93 only had 4, while the other three had 5), this can be done.

If they could just reinforce cockpit doors and arm pilots, then the hijackers would not have any motivation to hijack the plane. They might threaten to kill passengers unless the crew opened the cockpit doors, which would obviously require the cockpit crew to make the agonizing decision to sacrifice the lives of any and all passengers in order to prevent a 9/11 repeat.

[Charlotte Corday]

Thus, the airline can provide minimum security at a cost of $350 million over five years, including the cost of one security failure, or $500 million over five years with zero security failures. Which security model do you thing the airline would choose?

It would depend upon how much extra you could charge for a ticket and how many more seats you could sell under each option, which is the factor you did not consider.

The true flaw in the proposal is that in our freewheeling tort law system, a single security breach resulting in the loss of an aircraft could essentially bankrupt the airline. This would lead the airline to screening/database requirements that would make the NKVD blush for shame. That in turn would make ground travel so appealing on routes up to 500 miles as to bankrupt the airline anyway.

[Natural Law]

Chlorine Bleach mixed with Ammonia produces highly toxic Chloramine gas. Inside an airliner this could be a deadly combination.

[FairOpinion]

Feds Searching All Commercial Airplanes
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,100413,00.html


Friday, October 17, 2003



Authorities are searching every commercial airplane in the United States on Friday after someone left three suspicious bags filled with claylike material, bleach and boxcutters on two Southwest Airlines (search) flights, officials told Fox News.

Whoever left the bags on planes in Houston and New Orleans left notes that said the writer was concerned about security on airplanes. It is unclear when the bags were left on the planes.

The federal Transportation Security Administration (search) has directed that all commercial aircraft be searched within 24 hours, according to Department of Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

Roehrkasse said he does not believe the searches will cause delays as the searches will occur between flights.

The massive search comes a week after federal authorities issued a warning to law enforcement officials that terrorists may be poised for new attacks in the United States.

"Recent multiple reports indicate terrorists may be poised to conduct simultaneous attacks in the near term against U.S. interests in a number of venues overseas and possibly in the United States,'' the special edition bulletin stated.

Increased security on airlines has been a significant issue since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. In those attacks, 19 terrorists are believed to have snuck box cutters onto four commerical airplanes. The box cutters were thought to be used to subdue or kill the pilots or other crew members on the planes.

Southwest issued a statement saying that airline personnel were performing maintenance on an aircraft lavotory in New Orleans on Thursday night when they discovered a small plastic bag containing items intended to simulate a threat.

During another check on a plane in Houston, workers found a similar package.

"A note in both packages indicated the items were intended to challenge the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint security procedures," the Southwest statement said.

After consulting with the TSA, Southwest inspected its fleet of 385 aircraft and found no additional miscellaneous items.

"We will not speculate on who might have left these items onboard. We will cooperate with the federal authorities to investigate this thoroughly," the statement said.

[petercooper]

simple solution to all this---- profiling.

it's not p.c. - but it works. it's common sense

[TomGuy]

FoxNews: 1 plane flight originated in Orlando and the other in Austin. Wonder how many were involved in this "exercise"?

[Charlotte Corday]

"make the agonizing decision to sacrifice the lives of any and all passengers in order to prevent a 9/11 repeat."

Say what?

The whole point post 9/11 is if the cockpit door opens, all the passengers are as good as dead anyway.

[Labyrinthos]

Looks like it's time to strip-search some more 85-year-old grandmothers.

And they should. The risk of an 85 year old grandmother being searched is what discourages terrorists from using 85 year old grandmothers to smuggle weapons past security. You are talking about a group of sickos who applaud the use of their own children as homocide bombers. Don't think for a second that an 85 year old terminally ill terrorist sympathizer (who is just as likely to be a retired Amercian-born college professor from Cornell as opposed to a foreigner from the Middle East) wouldn't help the "I hate America" movement, if asked to do so.

[Solson]

and it won't be successful...which is my main point.

So a highjacker disables the front half. The back half won't stop from coming forward. Meanwhile, F-16's are scrambled due to mayday call from the pilot and the plane is grounded. If the highjackers somehow overpower the crew and get into the cockpit, the alarm will have already been sounded and the plane shot down.

I'm not saying things won't happen. I'm just saying, it will never again be a successful strike against american interests with a highjacked plane...

[Charlotte Corday]

Profiling would be a LOT better than what we have, but in today's lawsuit/insurance environment would a lot better be enough - I doubt it.

[new cruelty]

Someone back in the early part of the century once said that all the major inventions had already been invented, and nothing really important would ever be invented again. ."

Here's a little more trivia scattered about the Internet on that subject:

In 1899, (then) U.S. Patent Office Commissioner Charles Duell allegedly reported to President McKinley and the Congress that, "I recommend closing the Patent Office, since everything that can be invented has been invented."

Archivists disavow this quote, pointing to many of Duell's verified statements to the contrary. Inventors were operating in high gear at the time, and the Patent Office in 1899 could hardly keep abreast of American innovation. This country was, after all, in the very midst of the industrial revolution. Nonetheless, this misquote made the rounds for decades, appearing in advertisements and repeated by lecturers.

[berkeleybeej]

Wrong. Finding them after the plane landed is a sign that they were smuggled aboard and thus a failure.

Unless the items were placed on board after the flight landed and before the maintenance folks found them...

[petercooper]

we need tort reform