Something like ten years ago, I pointed out very loudly and clearly that additional "security" on commercial air travel was utter bullshit. The act of 'hijacking' as we understand it became nearly impossible about the time a bunch of passengers on that last September 11th jet got together to fuck up the plans of the men who'd taken the aircraft with a bunch of boxcutters.
In the intervening years, the dickheads in power have made air travel less and less palatable, and "security" more and more invasive. And as far as their efforts go, I can't think of a single fucking success.
On the other side of the scales, though... there was that froot loop who tried to 'jack a flight from Melbourne to Hobart. Remember him? He smuggled wooden stakes onto an Ansett (I think) jet in his jacket, and tried to get into the cockpit. He was convinced that Satan lives under the Walls of Jerusalem (in Tasmania) and he was determined to crash the plane into the Devil's own private retreat.
The outcome? One froot-loop, overpowered and restrained by passengers and stewards.
Then there was the infamous "shoe-bomber", who made an utter fucking hash of setting his bomb-shoes alight in an international flight. Passengers noticed him dicking around with matches and his shoes... and yeah, they jumped the bastard and laid him out.
Now we get this, out of China:
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/two-plane-hijackers-beaten-to-death-by-passengers-in-china/story-e6frfq80-1226415821620
Like so many news articles coming out of China, it's a mess. Were they "hijackers"? Or was it just a "brawl over seats"?
Who knows? Who cares?
Hijacking aircraft is a dead art. The only way it could be carried out with any real chance of success would be by stacking the passenger list with martyrs... or perhaps by arranging to kill 90% of the passengers with gas or poison before launching your attack. Otherwise, the moment you stand up and announce your intention to redirect the aircraft to the destination of your choice, the passengers are quite reasonably going to assume that they have nothing to lose... and they are going to beat five kinds of squishy pink fuck out of you. If you're lucky. (If you're unlucky, the passengers will include someone like me, and when you get to the ground, you'll be screaming to be arrested and taken away to a nice cell in some third world country where the worst that will happen is a little electricity through your gonads)
I wish to hell the inbreds who handle the so-called "security" for air travel would wake up and smell the roses. The bullshit they carry on with costs us all a shitload of money, wastes an enormous amount of time, and pisses off millions of people every week all over the world.
You want airline security? Issue every passenger with a single-use taser as they get aboard the plane. Collect it from them again as they leave.
Problem solved.
Hamburgers, the superfood.
10 hours ago
Most sensible suggestion I heard was a door for the cabin crew to get into the cockpit and another door for the passengers and no connection between the two.
ReplyDeleteMore SENSIBLE, sure. Yeah. But more FUN? I think not! Fly Flinthart Air! Tase The Fuck Out Of That Annoying Bastard In The Seat In Front Of You! Take Fifty Thousand Volts To The Scrote And Laugh (In A Terrifyingly High-Pitched Voice!)
DeleteTrue yours is more fun, will certainly choose Flinthart Air, as my first choice. After Bill & Beal airlines anyway.
DeleteOf course, you could take the point of view that airport security is a good way to keep some of your citizenry from moving about quite so much. Worked for some of my family.
ReplyDeleteOh, I figured that angle a long time ago. And truly, it's keeping me out of the USA. I won't be taking my kids to any of the Disney stuff I did, purely because there's a non-zero chance that some of the people I pissed off in the NSA and the Pentagon (on a private forum) prior to the invasion of Iraq may have put me on some kind of shit-list... and I'm not even legally allowed to know.
ReplyDeleteFuck. That. Shit.
George Carlin's take on it,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca798PxmJpw
Then again the new body scanners don't work either.