Mayday (2013) s16e02 Episode Script

There was a sense of something coming over the tops of our cars.
A commercial jet screams low over Washington, DC.
And the fireballs just billowed out of the Pentagon.
We have watched the tragedy of an outrageous act of barbaric terrorism.
I want passenger manifests, surveillance video, the works.
The attack on the Pentagon mobilizes hundreds of FBI agents and NTSB investigators.
Left.
You had the largest investigation in American history going on.
They uncover a mountain of evidence.
What are you guys doing? Shocking details about the terrorist hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77.
Stay where you are now or die! Their strategy was audacious but not complicated.
And it worked.
It's nearly 8am at Dulles Airport near Washington, DC.
American Airlines Flight 77 will soon be heading to Los Angeles.
39-year-old David Charlebois is the First Officer.
Any plans for the big day? Gonna take in the ballgame at Angel Stadium.
Oh, yeah? That'll be great.
The Captain, Charles Burlingame, turns 52 tomorrow.
Captain Burlingame was a former Navy pilot.
He was a graduate of the Fighter Weapons School, otherwise and more commonly known as 'Top Gun.
' A very experienced airline pilot, a lot of years in service, very professional.
Can I help you with that? The Boeing 757 is less than half full this morning.
There are only 58 passengers on board.
No.
I'm booked all day that day.
What about next week? Barbara Olson is on her way to LA to appear on a TV talk show.
- Bye.
- Barbara Olson was a high-profile lawyer in Washington, DC.
Very active in the political circles out there.
She was also the wife of the US Solicitor General at the time, Ted Olson.
Departure frequency will be 125.
05.
Runway 3-0.
Cleared for take-off.
Cleared for take-off off 3-0, American 77.
On the roll.
At 8:20am, American Airlines flight 77 gets underway.
V-1.
Rotate.
It was just a beautiful day.
The skies were clear throughout most of the country in fact and it was just a really, really gorgeous day for flying.
It takes roughly five hours to make the 2,300-mile trip from Washington to Los Angeles.
At 8:46, flight 77 reaches cruising altitude, 35,000 feet.
Looks like we're gonna have clear skies all the way.
That's what we like to hear.
American 77, turn right ten degrees.
Vectors for traffic.
On the ground, air traffic controllers guide the 757.
Turn right American 77.
I've always equated it to like a three-dimensional chess game, if you will.
Steve Baird was an air traffic controller for more than 20 years.
We worked a lot of airplanes, 12 to 17 airplanes at a time and they're moving along pretty fast and so things are happening pretty quickly.
American Airlines 77, clear direct Falmouth.
Clear direct Falmouth, American 77.
Thanks.
Falmouth, Kentucky, is the next waypoint on flight 77's route west to Los Angeles.
Alright.
Time for a bit more coffee.
There's not a lot of passengers on - board for the crew.
- They don't have as many people to take care of.
There's not as - much food service to worry abou/c - I'll have some water, please.
So, it's typically a more relaxed flight when the plane's not full.
34 minutes into the flight, controllers notice something odd.
What are you guys doing? Flight 77 is veering off course.
American 77, Center.
At the point where the controller noticed the aircraft take a turn that he did not instruct him to do, that's when he would become concerned.
American 7-7, radio check.
Two minutes later, their concern turns to alarm.
American 7-7, radio check.
Flight 77 has vanished from their radar.
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
Well, that's extremely rare that a plane would ever go missing, right? They just don't disappear.
Controllers usually track flights using a signal from a transponder on-board the aircraft.
The transponder gives them the flight number, the speed and altitude.
The controller switches his screen to search for a more basic signal, primary radar.
Supervisor.
But there's still no sign of the plane.
American 77, radio check.
How do you read? Their concern grows with each second of silence.
If I can't see him on the secondary or the primary radar and I can't speak with him, I would assume that he has gone down somewhere and crashed.
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bgblackCenter.
- Then, just after 9am, a call comes in from American Airlines that's almost impossible for controllers to digest.
It is Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
Thousands of people are feared dead.
Lower Manhattan is in chaos.
Almost everybody that saw what happened, saw it on TV, saw it live, said this is not an accident.
There's no way two planes, two commercial aircraft, accidentally hit both towers of the World Trade Center.
- No-one knew what was going on except for the country - was under attack and so I think it was very difficult.
Where are these airplanes? Are there any other airplanes out there that have gone missing? The fate of the missing 757 is now much more worrying.
What if it hasn't crashed somewhere in the Midwest? We need to find that plane.
- With two aircraft already in the World Trade Center towers, - another aircraft missing, air traffic controllers were most likely just going nuts trying to figure out what's happening.
Supervisor.
I've got a target tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed.
At 9:32, more than 0.
5 hours after losing contact with the plane, controllers spot a mysterious radar return.
Primary radar, that doesn't give you altitude or any real information.
If it is Flight 77, it means the plane has turned around, back towards Washington.
We gotta warn DC.
America's capital could be the next target.
At this point, since he was aware of the attacks on the country, I'm sure he already thought that was one of the hijacked aircraft.
Gopher 0-6, do you have a commercial aircraft in sight? Controllers recruit another pilot to try to learn more.
They radio the only other plane in the immediate air space, a C-130 cargo plane from nearby Andrews Air Force Base.
It looks like an American Airlines 757.
It's gotta be our plane.
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
But the 757 is ignoring all radio calls.
And it's heading straight for Washington.
It's 9:35am and traffic into Washington is getting congested.
I was on my way from my parish to the Arlington National Cemetery for a graveside service.
Father Stephen McGraw is stuck on a freeway right beside the Pentagon.
I took that exit actually because I knew that the Pentagon was near Arlington National Cemetery and I couldn't remember how to get to Arlington National so I thought it can't be that far off.
I'll take this exit.
But in front of the building there ended up being standstill traffic.
And then, without warning, there was a rush, feeling the vibrations or the sound and just, in other words, there was an overwhelming sense of something coming over the tops of our cars.
The plane clipped a light pole as it went over the highway and I turned instinctively to my right and to see just in time the plane coming in and just crashing into the building right in front of my eyes.
There were these two huge billows of fire that came out of the two top windows of the Pentagon and fireballs just kind of billowed out.
The symbol of US Military might is now in flames.
Smoke pours from a gaping 90-foot-wide hole in the Pentagon's west wall.
One entire section of the building has collapsed.
I had not heard anything about the World Trade Center crashes.
I didn't have my radio on, hadn't heard anything and so I just assumed that this was an accident.
There's no chance that any of the 64 people aboard the plane have survived the impact.
And there are sure to be many more dead among Pentagon staff.
- On average, any given day, 23,000 some odd people - work in the building.
It's five rings, five floors and five levels of military space.
With news of a third airliner attack, the FAA issues an unprecedented order.
Attention all pilots.
We have a national emergency.
We need to get everyone on the ground.
Every commercial flight in the country must land.
Vector ten degrees right.
Begin descent.
This is the first time in US history they grounded the whole fleet.
Be advised we are clearing the airspace.
- Controllers are trying to figure out a situation - they've never prepared for and trying to figure out how to get all the airplanes on the ground and accounted for before more loss of life.
Attention all pilots.
Attorney Richard Nummi was on one of those diverted flights.
The captain comes over the intercom system and said, we've just been notified that all air traffic in the United States has been required to land.
- It was a little bit startling.
It was a little bit looking out - the window going, what's going /c Nummi's flight lands in Wichita, Kansas.
He'll soon learn how lucky he is to be alive.
- I was scheduled to speak at a conference.
They booked me a ticket on American Airlines Flight 77 out of Dulles to the west coast.
At the last moment, he switched his ticket to a more convenient flight.
I had left the original flight itinerary on the refrigerator, drove to the airport, changed the ticket, got on the airplane, was very, very concerned that my wife was thinking that I was still on that plane.
It was one of those things where, you know, God was smiling on me that day.
At the Pentagon, Father McGraw rushes towards the devastation.
He wants to help whoever he can.
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bgblackI remember coming to one man in particular.
- He said, what is your name? I'm Father McGraw.
I'll stay with you.
And he said, "I'm Catholic.
" And so, I actually gave him, in those moments, the sacraments and anointed him on his forehead with the blessed oil, the oil of the sick.
And when I did that I remember saying to him, Jesus is with you.
"I tell you Jesus is with you now.
" - You can't go back in there! - You gotta maintain 500 yards.
Thousands of military staff evacuate the burning Pentagon.
The United States is under siege.
Just across the Potomac River, the hunt for those responsible is already underway.
- I want passenger manifests, witnesses, surveillance - video, the works.
We were setting up and actually getting our crew ready to respond to New York at the time and then obviously, we were hit then at the Pentagon so we changed our plans.
FBI supervisor John Perren sets up the agency's Washington command post.
You realize that we're under attack is what we are.
Then you realize that this is something that's never happened before.
This is war.
But before anyone can grasp the full magnitude of what has happened, another threat appears.
The FAA has reports of a fourth hijacking.
We were told that there was another aircraft heading towards Washington, DC, and the last timeline we were given was it was about eight minutes out.
So, what we did was we sent snipers up on the roof with binoculars to look out for this aircraft.
Across the US, thousands of flights are now grounded.
There's just airliner after airliner after airliner parked on the tarmac.
Then, at 10:15am, a blackened crater in rural Pennsylvania reveals what's left of the fourth hijacked plane.
- What was unique about that flight is the passengers - tried to retake the flight.
- They were unsuccessful to the extent that - the plane still crashed.
But they were successful that it did not crash into whatever its intended target was gonna be.
Four passenger jets have been hijacked and turned into flying bombs.
Nearly 3,000 people have been killed.
We have watched the tragedy of an outrageous act of barbaric terrorism carried out by fanatics against both civilians and military people.
You never in your wildest dreams would think that they would take aircrafts full of people and turn it into literally a missile.
Americans aren't used to being sucker punched.
We're pretty much convinced that there's a Pacific Ocean and there's an Atlantic Ocean and this doesn't happen here.
And I think on that day, the reality that this is a new world, happened.
The Pentagon is now a federal crime scene.
The FBI is in charge of the investigation.
I'd seen my share of deceased, but to see that much in that certain amount of time in that area, I don't care how adjusted you are to it, you feel it.
The FBI faces intense pressure to figure out who committed this terrible crime and how.
Because the crime scene is also an aviation crash site, experts from the National Transportation Safety Board join the investigation.
The FBI's experts on crimes and criminal investigations and that covers many areas.
They aren't necessarily airplane experts, and that's where the NTSB can come in.
Tom Haueter was one of the first NTSB investigators at the scene.
This airplane was hitting a very heavy structure, so most of the aircraft was reduced down to small pieces.
Investigators need to find the black boxes and any other evidence that could identify the hijackers.
It won't be easy.
The massive impact has left a confusing mixture of debris.
We provided five, six people at different times who assisted on going through the wreckage, going through the building trying to find, identify aircraft parts for them.
Anything that we took out of the site, we had them look at it, and they would identify it to us as either being an aircraft or a file cabinet.
It was very apparent that we needed that type of expertise on the scene.
Hundreds of searchers and investigators work around the clock.
Deep inside the badly damaged structure, the risk of building collapse is a constant danger.
The engineers, they had a technique to see if the building was starting to shift and if they noticed shifting or heard creaking everybody would rush out.
Everybody out! That happened at least a half a dozen times.
The number of people killed inside this legendary building reaches 125.
It would have been even higher, but some offices on the west side of the Pentagon were empty.
The area where American Airlines 77 hit had been undergoing some reconstruction, some remodelling.
So, there were not as many people at work as there normally would be.
It probably saved hundreds of lives.
As the nation tries to cope with the enormity of the devastation, FBI agents are already gaining valuable information about how the flights were turned into weapons of terror.
Some passengers managed to make phone calls from the air describing their ordeal.
Everyone to the back of the plane! Now! One of those calls was from Barbara Olson.
Barbara Olson called her husband, Ted Olson, the US Solicitor General at the time.
Tells him that the plane has been hijacked.
That the hijackers have box cutters and knives and they've moved people to the back of the plane.
She reveals that the hijackers then forced the pilots to leave the cockpit.
- You need to do something.
- Barbara Olson was incredibly brave.
If she's caught, she calls attention to herself, which may draw immediate violence to her.
We'll make it out of here.
It's fine.
I love you.
Not much more information is shared at that point before the phone is cut off.
The pilots probably thought that by cooperating everyone would get home safe.
Prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, all flight crews were told to cooperate with the hijackers, do what they want and bide for time.
Please stay calm.
Everybody move to the back.
Traditionally, it had been the aircraft was hijacked, the plane landed, the FBI would come on scene.
There'd be hours of negotiation and eventually the hijacking somehow ends.
- It really just wasn't in the imagination that they were - gonna crash these into buildings.
It's now clear how the hijackers took control of Flight 77.
But who were they? And how were they able to carry out their lethal attack? At Dulles Airport, the search for evidence takes a major step forward.
Airport security flags a suspicious car abandoned in one of the parking lots.
What investigators find in the car is astounding.
That was a treasure trove of investigative leads.
The items include a box cutter, diagrams of cockpit instruments and documents bearing Middle Eastern names.
They scan Flight 77's passenger manifest, checking to see if any of the suspicious names are listed.
It didn't take too long to figure out who the hijackers were.
The trail leads to five attackers.
Three were in First Class.
Two more were seated in Economy.
The Pentagon attackers are quickly linked to 14 suspects on the three other hijacked planes.
They found some commonalities right away.
One, that 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
And the other notable is that most of them had been in the United States for quite some time.
Identifying the hijackers is key.
But important questions remain.
How did terrorists get weapons past security at a modern airport? And how were they able to fly a sophisticated commercial airliner straight into the Pentagon? The FBI needs to uncover all it can about the Pentagon attackers, including their movements in the days and weeks before 9/11.
They scour government records, credit card transactions, travel itineraries and more.
All those pieces of paper and all those documentation, they were generating leads because you probably had the largest investigation in American history going on.
At the Pentagon, the exhaustive search effort is paying off.
Agents recover the plane's two black boxes.
The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.
When the boxes were found, the FBI investigators brought - them to the NTSB laboratory.
- American 77, radio check.
The recorders could help fill in key gaps in the timeline if their data can be successfully downl/c - Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
The most critical question, what was happening in the cockpit when controllers lost contact with the doomed plane? While they wait for word on the recorders, investigators scrutinize Pentagon security video.
They soon discover that the deadly impact was caught on tape.
A direct, high-speed hit on the southwest wall of the Pentagon.
It's now clear why the plane virtually disappeared.
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bgblackWhen you have an airplane hitting pretty much solid brick, it just - vaporizes.
There's not a lo/c But the question remains, how did the hijackers evade security and board the plane? Potentially dangerous passengers are supposed to be identified before they even get to the airport.
The airlines rely on a computerized screening system known as CAPPS.
- One of the things that CAPPS does - is the Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System - is it flags you if you have certain suspicious indicators.
Investigators wonder, did that pre-screening system somehow fail? When they study the records for Flight 77, they make a startling discovery.
CAPPS did not fail.
It actually flagged three of the five hijackers.
A special code was printed on their boarding passes selecting them for extra security screening.
Yet they still got through.
How could this happen? - There's no question that security was inadequate.
Brian Jenkins is an aviation security expert.
The CAPPS selectee process really didn't mean that much anymore and that was critical on the morning of 9/11.
Investigators learn that the extra security screening is minimal.
Passengers flagged by CAPPS are not searched.
The airline merely keeps their checked bags off the plane until after they've boarded.
Once they were certain you boarded the flight, your bags were loaded onto the plane.
The presumption was that the major threat was from a bomb in the hold of the aircraft and a presumption that the terrorist would not be suicidal.
After years without a major incident, it seems the airlines may have become complacent.
The focus on customer service, passenger efficiency, moving people through the airport was the top priority, not security.
But Washington Dulles, like all major airports, has more than one layer of security.
How did armed hijackers get past metal detectors? Did they have some elaborate scheme to conceal their weapons? Investigators hope airport security video from the morning of September 11 can shed light on the mystery.
There was a level of security in play.
Certainly, looking for bombs on the person, bombs in the luggage, you know, guns, you know, the typical type of thing.
The first two hijackers reached the security checkpoint at around 7:20am.
One calmly proceeds through the metal detector without raising an alarm.
But the second suspect does set it off.
He's carrying something made of metal.
The metal detector caught the weapon.
Then the security process breaks down.
An officer scans the suspect with a handheld detector.
The wand turns up nothing.
They've done this thousands of times.
OK, the alarm went off.
OK, now I'm supposed to wand the guy.
OK, good enough.
Instead of searching the suspect further, security lets him through.
Well, they've got a line of passengers back there.
Move on.
At the time, the bar was set very low for individuals coming through the checkpoint and resolution of alarms.
None of the hijackers get a rigorous inspection, even though one of them is clearly carrying what looks like a tool or a knife.
There was something clipped to his back pocket, which in the video shows that the screener never really resolved what that was and that's a failure.
But the FAA policy at the time was knives of no greater than four inches in blade length.
So, even if they had found box cutters and knives on them, those items were allowed on-board at the time under FAA policy.
Investigators come to a shattering conclusion.
The 9/11 attackers didn't have an elaborate plan to foil airport security because they didn't need one.
The scary part of their hijack is that it is so simple.
It's like having a security alarm system for your entire house and forgetting to secure the dog door and oh, that's how they came in.
Their strategy was audacious but not complicated, and it worked.
The five of them got through security and got on-board an airplane.
But getting on-board with weapons was only the first step.
Everyone to the back of the plane! Now! The big mystery to solve now is how the hijackers were able to carry out the rest of their murderous mission.
FBI agents dig through financial documents connected to the Pentagon attackers.
They uncover a crucial lead - a cheque made out to a flight school in Arizona.
Records show that Saudi national, Hani Hanjour, spent several years trying to become a commercial airline pilot.
He'd applied to schools in Saudi Arabia to fly and was rejected.
Eventually ended up doing flight training in Arizona and was kind of unusual in his flight training 'cause he flunked a lot of checks along the way.
Two months before the attacks, Hanjour rented several private planes, including one he flew to a small airport near Washington, DC.
For the pilot perspective, it's one thing to fly a flight simulator.
It's a completely different thing to be up in the air to see what the real world looks like from the air.
Airport flight records reveal more chilling details about Hanjour's preparations for 9/11.
Just weeks before the attacks, he and one of his co-conspirators booked a commercial flight out of Washington's Dulles airport.
They bought seats in first class aboard a Boeing 757.
I think they used the surveillance flights to try to understand how they could take over the aircraft and get into the cockpit.
To learn things like, wow, about 30 minutes after take-off once we were at cruise, they opened the door to give the pilots coffee.
So, all of that is valuable intelligence and insight for the hijackers.
Turn right, American 77.
But flying a sophisticated airliner is very different from piloting a small private plane.
How did the hijackers steer a 757 towards a target 35,000 feet below? Investigators hope the plane's flight data will provide some answers.
Unfortunately, the cockpit voice recorder was too damaged and no information could be recovered from it.
But we were able to read out the flight data recorder.
They study the flight data to reproduce the exact movements of the plane throughout the flight.
Power is increasing.
Vertical speed is good.
Take-off and climb look completely normal.
And obviously, you look at the data, you speculate.
When did the hijackers take over the airplane? When did the terrorists, you know, start doing what they did? That we don't know with any precision.
Clearly, it's some time before the airplane turned back.
Banking left, nice and smooth.
It must be the autopilot.
The data reveals how the hijackers managed to turn the 757 around.
This I think should take us back to DC.
They relied on the plane's automation.
You don't need to be a pilot at all when the autopilot's on.
He can put a heading into the autopilot.
He can put airspeeds into the autopilot.
Everything can be done for him, very smoothly.
And he doesn't have to do a lot of control inputs.
Why are we turning? Keep quiet! But as the plane nears the Pentagon, the autopilot disengages and the flying begins to change.
Left.
Right.
This guy is really struggling.
Whoa! The altitude is jumpy.
It moves up and down.
It's a little bit erratic.
It's quite clear, looking at the data, this is somebody who has never handled a big airplane before.
We should stay on autopilot until we're closer.
The hijacker quickly re-engages the autopilot to help take the 757 to a lower altitude.
Descending now.
He's probably never flown an airplane this high.
Having to come down from, you know, 30,000 feet down to ground level.
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bgblackThat's a whole different manoeuvre than he's used to - in a small airplane.
But the autopilot isn't pre-programmed to fly to the precise location of the Pentagon.
It's just ahead.
Autopilot off.
Eight minutes from impact, the hijacker must once again fly the aircraft by hand.
Keep it steady.
Only four miles from the Pentagon, they're still flying higher than 6,000 feet.
We're way too high! We're never gonna hit it! To shed altitude, they make a sharp diving turn to the right.
He misjudged his speed and altitude and had to do a 360 degree turn.
The aircraft can only come out of the sky so fast without breaking up.
So, he makes a circle to get the aircraft lower and get it into position to hit the Pentagon.
He had a lot of luck going for him.
He had a very clear day.
So, getting back, he probably could see the Pentagon from quite a distance out.
In the final seconds, they accelerate to top speed, almost to the point of breakup.
Terrain.
Terrain.
The airplane's overspeed warnings are probably going off.
He doesn't care.
The terrorist probably could not have successfully landed that airplane.
Crashing is a lot easier than landing it.
And they proved that.
Investigators now understand the deadly flight path of American 77.
The flight data solves one more mystery as well.
Why controllers lost radar contact with the 757 when the crisis began.
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
It looks like somebody deliberately switched off the transponder, here.
The hijackers turned off the signal used to track the plane.
The transponder controls are on the central console between the two pilots.
So, you can turn it off right there.
It's very easy to do.
American 77, radio check.
How do you read? - With the transponder off - Supervisor.
.
.
controllers could no longer see the flight on their secondary radar.
American 77.
So, turning off the transponder, if you're a criminal, makes sense because you don't want people to track you.
At the moment controllers switched to primary radar to search for the missing plane, Flight 77 just happened to be passing through an area of poor primary coverage.
For American Airlines 77 to drop off radar in an area of limited radar coverage - one, that's incredibly lucky for the hijackers, but also not totally unexpected because not every square mile in the United States is covered by radar.
Luck may have helped the hijackers hit their target, but the FBI now has no doubt the attack was planned down to the last detail.
They chose their seats carefully.
They wanted to be closer to the cockpit so they could observe when would be the appropriate moment to make their rush at the cockpit.
The crew has no reason to suspect a thing.
The attack is underway before passengers have any hint of danger.
The fate of Flight 77 is now sealed.
Hani Hanjour, he's the pilot.
In all likelihood, he's not going to get involved at all in the initial stages of the hijacking.
Please, don't hurt me.
Because if he's hurt or killed then the mission's unsuccessful at that point.
Open the door or we'll cut your throat.
OK.
OK.
The flight attendants carry keys to the cockpit door.
So, an option is to overtake a flight attendant, take their key and then just unlock the door.
Out of the cockpit! Now! The pilots have no warning and no time to alert authorities.
There is a hijack control code that the pilots can put into the transponder, but apparently that didn't happen.
Stay calm.
Stay calm.
Don't hurt anybody.
That's the flight attendant they've been flying with probably for years.
One of your best friends is on the other side of that door with a knife to their throat.
That's a different scenario than somebody you don't even know.
Everyone to the back of the plane.
Now! The hijackers begin their descent.
American 77, radio check.
How do you read? I love you.
I'll see you soon.
It is unlikely that crew or passengers would have thought that the plane is going to be turned into a missile.
Whoa.
The erratic flying almost certainly gets the attention of the captain.
But there's nothing he can do.
You have to let me back in the cockpit.
Stay where you are now or die! I've got a target tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed.
By the time controllers spot Flight 77's primary radar return, the plane is only five minutes from DC.
There was nothing the controllers could have done.
The 100-tonne jet screams lower and lower.
Steel light poles snap like twigs.
Terrain.
Terrain.
Pull up.
Allahu Akbar! 9/11 shook us to our core.
Anybody that was of age during that time, it's like the Kennedy assassination.
Where were you on 9/11? And everybody has their story.
It has marked our generation.
It was a win for the bad guys.
And we can't let that happen again.
The 9/11 attacks bring immediate and profound change to commercial aviation both in the US and around the world.
The situation for airport security, airplane security was a lot different prior to 9/11 than it is today.
Just two months after the attacks, the US Government creates the Transportation Security Administration or TSA.
The federal government took direct responsibility for aviation security, and the screeners are now federal employees.
The training certainly has improved.
The TSA brings in strict new rules on what travellers can carry on planes.
Airports start screening passengers with full body scanning machines.
There are also major changes to on-board security.
The cockpit doors.
I mean, it's not just the door.
The whole bulkhead on the aircraft has been made darn near impregnable.
It's bullet proof.
You can't get through the locks.
But perhaps the most important change to security has come not from new rules or better technology, but from the permanently altered attitudes of airline passengers everywhere.
Today, the assumption by passengers if they feel threatened with a hijacking is not one of compliance.
If you saw somebody in the back of the plane get up and say, you know, start screaming things, running to the front of the plane.
You have a choice of sitting in your seat and minding your own business, or you have the option of standing up, saying, uh-uh.
I guarantee you, you're gonna stand up.
The paradigm has changed.
Until we invent the silver bullet or the x-ray for a man's soul, there are going to be performance problems.
But it is much better than it was.
Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.
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