What I post here happened a few days ago in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. On the day in question a man landed his private plane at a small, private, "uncontrolled" airfield in suburban Portland. While refueling his plane the man asked the airfield attendant what is Portland's tallest building. The attendant answered, and the man responded with a remark about flying his plane into it. The attendant called either the F.A.A. or the F.B.I. [accounts differ], and reported what the man said. FOUR HOURS LATER the message reached the Air National Guard base at Portland International Airport, and two fighters were scrambled. The plane was never spotted; the fighters landed after it was determined the plane would have run out of fuel by then. The next day the man in question was apparently found and determined to be either depressed or "joking."
Fortunately, no harm was caused by the events described above, but what if the man had been serious, and had loaded his plane with volatile material, which is possible at an "uncontrolled" airport? Four hours is the best response time a major city can expect when a man threatens to do the very same thing that has us in a supposedly increased state of awareness and security? The events does not inspire me with confidence in the government's ability to protect us.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
Nobody is ever safe.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Well, duh, Mike, but the lack of security at such small airports sort of implies that the government is falling into a lax state. C'mon, "Homeland Security" ... get with the fuckin' picture.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Well, all I know for sure is that very little has changed in the airport security personnell area. The same incompetent boobs who were working it before still are... except now they're government employees, which means they'll be 50 times harder to fire when they screw up.
Y'know they don't even require a high-school graduation or a GED? And these are people we're entrusting with our LIVES, much less our property?
This is why knee-jerk government industry "regulation" is bad... even (maybe especially) when Republicans do it. They shoulda thought this through more, though I can understand why that wasn't a priority.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Ralph Nader was asked how he would've responded if he'd been elected president last year to the events of 9/11.
His response? "It would not have happened."
One of Nader's campaign points was to install steel doors in cockpits and revamp the airport security process.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
That is a pretty bold statement.
There are thousands of airplanes in the U.S. alone. Even if all of them could have been refitted with steel doors and whatnot in, say, two months, that's still no guarantee that 9/11 would not have happened.