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!
I disagree.
Whether or not the device on flight 253 worked, ALL planes in the air should have been notified. If this was a multi-plane attack they might have been able to prevent other terrorists from attempting to blow up the planes they were on.In addition, ALL planes on the ground should have been put on hold and the passengers run back through security.
We can see you're paying attention!
HF