I read somewhere that none of the planes had a full house so it was easy to get the passengers to the backs of the planes with minimul threats.
I can see a bomb threat with a box cutter working wonders on passengers taken off guard....why resist......the furthust thought from the passengers minds as well was they would never crash into buildings....
The only reason flight over PA rebelled was because they were warned and knew what was coming. The others on the other 3 planes had no idea.
That is indeed part of the problem. Another part, I think, is the general attitude of our society that all violence is evil, resistance is futile, trust your govt "professionals" to handle everything, etc. It took the knowledge that death was inevitable to get a few men on one flight to resist. IMHO Jeffrey Snyder has it right in his essay "Nation of Cowards" (written in 1993); resistence to assault should be the norm not the exception.