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Pilots Out of Loop on Terrorist Attempt?
AVweb ^ | Dec 30, 2009

Posted on 12/30/2009 5:54:20 AM PST by KeyLargo

Pilots Out of Loop on Terrorist Attempt?

Pilots Want To Know About Attacks: APA

The Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines pilots, says most airborne flight crews weren't notified of the Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Northwest Airlines A330. The group is calling for changes after what it describes as "communications failures" left the majority of airborne flight crews in the dark about the attempted bombing. In a message to members, the APA's security committee said the Transportation Security Administration specifically told airlines to notify only the crews of airborne westbound trans-Atlantic flights of the attack on the Northwest flight on approach to Detroit. "The TSA should have mandated that information about this security event be passed on to all airborne flights," says the message, which was passed to AVweb by a reader.....

http://www.avweb.com/pdf/apa_letter-to-pilots_december2009.pdf

(Excerpt) Read more at avweb.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: airline; alpa; bomb; flight253; nwa; pilots; terrorist
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1 posted on 12/30/2009 5:54:21 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: KeyLargo

That makes sense- al Qaeda .... err, isolated extremists.... obviously intend to only bomb flights landing in America, not those departing

sarc

Who is running the TSA while bambi surfs? His protocol chief?


2 posted on 12/30/2009 5:57:07 AM PST by silverleaf (More folks being invited to the White House for Holiday parties than are being sent to Afghanistan)
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To: KeyLargo

Of COURSE they won’t tell other flights and pilots about this! If they did, there MIGHT have been some discrimination taking place and some poor terrorists might have had his feelings hurt by extra scrutiny! How offensive!

</sarc>


3 posted on 12/30/2009 6:00:20 AM PST by Mr. Jazzy ("I AM JIM THOMPSON and moderates make me PUKE!!!")
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To: KeyLargo

Didn’t I hear Obama say that all flights in progress were notified of the attempted attack.

So another lie from this poseur.


4 posted on 12/30/2009 6:02:43 AM PST by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
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To: KeyLargo

even a “flash” report on whatever was known at the time of the incident would have alerted in-bound transatlantic flights of potential trouble on more than just the Delta flight.

Supposedly, 25 terrorists are in training now for similar airborn attacks that are planned for a “spectacular attack,” perhaps as early as January 1, 2010.

BO Plenty should fire Homeland Security Secretary immediately to indicate that he is serious (doubtful) about airline security.

Bring back profiling of swarthy looking Muslims, especially those who smell of perfume or aftershave lotion: a sure sign of suicide bombers.


5 posted on 12/30/2009 6:04:03 AM PST by mohresearcher
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To: Carley
I think Sis said the same thing in clarifying her comments about the system working.

Evidently did not mean it.

6 posted on 12/30/2009 6:05:39 AM PST by arkady_renko
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To: arkady_renko

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is not fit for position, recent events prove

Michael Daly

Tuesday, December 29th 2009, 4:00 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/12/29/2009-12-29_put_real_cops_in_charge_of_security.html


7 posted on 12/30/2009 6:12:08 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: Carley

“Didn’t I hear Obama say that all flights in progress were notified of the attempted attack.”

Hmmm. As I recall, Napolitano made a comment that ~120 flights were notified. If so that “might” cover the inbounds over the Atlantic, but what of the foreign carriers? There would be far more than that. If one was really pious, the Pacific inbounds (both foreign and US carriers) would also have been notified. Remember, Al Qaida likes to do BIG coordinated attacks.

Finally, does a a flag operation make a bigger crater than a domestic flight? Obviously, the domestic flights should have been notified as well, and yes the airline dispatchers have the capability to do this as well. So now you see that there are probably, perhaps thousands of flights that could have used the information and only a little over one hundred were notified.

No one can say that the “system worked”. Well, you can say it, but it don’t make it so.


8 posted on 12/30/2009 6:21:34 AM PST by Habibi ("It is vain to do with more what can be done with less." - William of Occam)
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To: silverleaf

Part of the problem is that there is nobody in charge at TSA at the moment, as Obammy’s nominee is held up in the Senate because it seems his only goal is to unionize TSA as quickly as possible.


9 posted on 12/30/2009 6:23:16 AM PST by Bean Counter (Stout Hearts....)
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To: arkady_renko

Janet Napolitano’s ‘clarification’ lauded the Obama administration’s neighborhood Crime Watch Telephone Tree: “..within an hour to 90 minutes, all 128 flights in the air had been notified.”

90 minutes to notify 128 flights?? Good God. What’d they do, line up at the crank phone in Mayberry? If this developmentally disabled woman thinks that’s anything to crow about, she’s even dumber than we knew.

A quick Google establishes that, at any given moment, there are roughly 5000 aircraft in US airspace. Even if we eliminate non-commercial flights, we’re still looking at about 1600 flights in our skies. So what’s with the 128 number?


10 posted on 12/30/2009 6:26:53 AM PST by Eroteme
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To: Habibi

We have come to expect that every single word from this administration is an outright LIE.


11 posted on 12/30/2009 6:28:54 AM PST by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
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To: Carley
"Didn’t I hear Obama say that all flights in progress were notified of the attempted attack."

Janet Incompetano specifically said 'all' 168 flights in the air at the time were notified. However, since there are over 5000 flights in the air, under air traffic control guidance, at any time over US air space, she had to really mean that only a small subset of 'all' flights were notified. It was logically 'all' inbound flights from Europe.

12 posted on 12/30/2009 6:31:05 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (Galileo: In science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of one individual)
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To: Carley

What would Sully say about Janet Incompetano?

13 posted on 12/30/2009 6:31:37 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: Carley

Last line of defense against in-flight terrorism: passengers

Terrorism on 9/11 permanently altered how passengers respond to airline hijackings, rewriting the conventional wisdom that the best way for passengers to stay safe is to stay quiet.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/1229/Last-line-of-defense-against-in-flight-terrorism-passengers


14 posted on 12/30/2009 6:33:13 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: KeyLargo
Had the device worked as planned all the warnings in the world to other aircraft wouldn't have changed a thing. This was a failure much higher up the chain than on an inbound Trans-Atlantic flight. Had there been others with the same MO and the devices worked properly no amount of notices or warnings would have changed the outcome.

Face it, the system failed, miserably, and it failed at the most critical juncture. As with most problems in life the the nearer a fix for a problem is to the source of the problem the simpler it is, and the more likely it is to work. This problem was solved at its most distant point from the source, and nothing short of an Act of God saved the day.

Had the rule been: Don't let anyone on a flight without very careful scrutiny, search and vetting, who has bought a ticket with cash (especially a one-way ticket), checked no baggage, has no passport and has to be talked on board by a smooth talking well-dressed older gentleman of a different ethnicity, and chosen one of several seats on the flight that could be considered structurally critical to the operation of the aircraft.

Any one of these should result in immediate flagging of the passenger. Two of them should set off alarms all over the place and three or more should have resulted in detaining the passenger on the spot. This man was a walking time bomb, even with the faulty detonation device or process and was an immediate danger to anyone within several yards.

Why do we have to make it so complicated? Notice NONE of the flags outlined above has anything to do with profiling the person, just the behavior. It doesn't have to be a racial or religious or ethnic thing.

The conventional wisdom now is that they won't be trying this method again since we are hip to their jive, but I would be good money they feel even more confident now the plan can be used after a short period of time. We don't learn a lot from our mistakes, and what we do learn we tend for forget very quickly. How many times have these points been stressed as danger signs, and yet here's a guy who fits every danger signal on the list and he's packing a Christmas present for the Great Satan. So much for learning from our mistakes.

Give it a week or a month and it will be right back like it was. It's been almost a week already and not one head has rolled in response to the mistakes that were made. As long as the response to as blatant a failure as this is finger pointing instead of rolling heads nothing’s going to change.

The concept of the TSA was doomed from the git-go. And talk about slow learners, now we're two votes away from having this same bunch run our health care!

15 posted on 12/30/2009 6:34:21 AM PST by jwparkerjr
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To: Habibi

Very strange. Napolitano’s reference to “all 128 flights” just does not compute. That number is nonsensical. Is this a clintonian “all 128 flights that we intended to notify”? or all 128 flights from Amsterdam, or all 128 flights with passengers from Yemen with no luggage on the terrorist watch list?


16 posted on 12/30/2009 6:34:41 AM PST by Eroteme
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To: Eroteme

December 20, 2009
Terror Test-Runs on Airlines?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/terror_test_runs_on_airlines.html


17 posted on 12/30/2009 6:41:42 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: Habibi

Newsmax

Hoekstra: Napolitano Makes ‘Major Blunders’
Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:22 PM

By: Dave Eberhart

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and President Barack Obama seem intent on denying that foreign terrorism is a threat to the United States while taking half-measures that leave our borders undefended, says Michigan Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/hoekstra-obama-terrorism-airliner/2009/12/28/id/344823


18 posted on 12/30/2009 6:52:49 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: KeyLargo

Wonder what Sully would think about the two pilots who took a walk about while flying over the USA.

And the total lack of response to that missing plane.

No notice to NORAD, etc.

If anyone doubts that this administration is SNAFU they’re in denial.


19 posted on 12/30/2009 7:03:06 AM PST by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
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To: silverleaf
Who is running the TSA while bambi surfs? His protocol chief?

There hasn't been a director of the TSA since The One has been in office...he hasn't appointed one yet.

20 posted on 12/30/2009 7:05:13 AM PST by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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