>>Remember that at the time airplane hijackings were usually about ransom
This standard assumption is a critical point for understanding 9/11.
The well-established procedure was to keep talking with the hijackers, get the plane on the ground at an airport, and negotiate to get the hostages out, etc. Airplane hijacking was also remarkably common, and despite this, there were no real efforts to take measures like reinforcing aircraft cockpit doors.
That set of assumptions is completely incompatible with assuming that hijackers are on a suicide mission.
So the suicide mission succeeded in the first three airplanes, but withing an hour or so, when passengers on the 4th hijacked plane had heard about the other planes being crashed into buildings, they realized that they were all already dead, so attacked the hijackers, and the plane crashed into a field in PA. Fighter jets were also scrambled so quickly that they had no time to load ammunition/armaments, and the mission was to take down the plane (but it went down first); this would also have been almost surely suicidal for the unarmed fighters, having to make contact in midair.
So, as a side-effect, in a single morning, the entire set of assumptions underlying hijacking was eliminated, and hijacking was also essentially eliminated. Any potential hijacker would be treated with the assumption that they were on a suicide mission, and had essentially zero chance of survival, let alone achieving their goal (money or release of prisoners). I don't recall hearing of a single hijacking since then (although a few instances of pilot suicide taking the passengers with them).
This is a very interesting take, thanks for raising it! And also super interesting detail about the fighters not having time for weapons loadout. I did not know either of those things...A lot of good people died that day.
How would the unarmed fighters even have taken down the airliner?
I'm not sure what part of the passenger jet they'd crash into, but ramming head on into the cockpit might give you the the best success rate if you have enough time to get into position.
There were interviews with or voice recordings of the two fighter pilots discussing who would hit the cockpit and who would hit the tail, should it have come to that.
This standard assumption is a critical point for understanding 9/11.
The well-established procedure was to keep talking with the hijackers, get the plane on the ground at an airport, and negotiate to get the hostages out, etc. Airplane hijacking was also remarkably common, and despite this, there were no real efforts to take measures like reinforcing aircraft cockpit doors.
That set of assumptions is completely incompatible with assuming that hijackers are on a suicide mission.
So the suicide mission succeeded in the first three airplanes, but withing an hour or so, when passengers on the 4th hijacked plane had heard about the other planes being crashed into buildings, they realized that they were all already dead, so attacked the hijackers, and the plane crashed into a field in PA. Fighter jets were also scrambled so quickly that they had no time to load ammunition/armaments, and the mission was to take down the plane (but it went down first); this would also have been almost surely suicidal for the unarmed fighters, having to make contact in midair.
So, as a side-effect, in a single morning, the entire set of assumptions underlying hijacking was eliminated, and hijacking was also essentially eliminated. Any potential hijacker would be treated with the assumption that they were on a suicide mission, and had essentially zero chance of survival, let alone achieving their goal (money or release of prisoners). I don't recall hearing of a single hijacking since then (although a few instances of pilot suicide taking the passengers with them).