Who is Responsible?
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True, but I have my secret weapon against them all ..... Vegemite, they won't know what hit them. Also as supreme leader there must be some advantages like sex with who ever he pleases even if it is against his religion/beliefs. Michael Martin Pegasystems Pty Ltd Australia martm@pegasystems.com +61 413-004-018 "Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace" - Victor Stone
What on god's green earth is Vegemite? I take it, from the tone of the post, that it is in fact not some super weapon but nonetheless equally horrid? ..."Also as supreme leader there must be some advantages like sex with who ever he pleases even if it is against his religion/beliefs"... You get to declare any day whatever you like e.g. "Vegemite day!". Also you get to popularise a silly salute, such as seen in Third Rock From The Sun. ..."like sex with who ever he pleases"... I hear the higher the position (political, not sexual) the errr inversely proportional the size of ones "manhood". Same with BMW drivers ;P regards, Paul Watson Cape Town, South Africa e: paulmwatson@email.com w: vergen.org
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What on god's green earth is Vegemite? I take it, from the tone of the post, that it is in fact not some super weapon but nonetheless equally horrid? ..."Also as supreme leader there must be some advantages like sex with who ever he pleases even if it is against his religion/beliefs"... You get to declare any day whatever you like e.g. "Vegemite day!". Also you get to popularise a silly salute, such as seen in Third Rock From The Sun. ..."like sex with who ever he pleases"... I hear the higher the position (political, not sexual) the errr inversely proportional the size of ones "manhood". Same with BMW drivers ;P regards, Paul Watson Cape Town, South Africa e: paulmwatson@email.com w: vergen.org
Vegemite is the Gift of the Gods. Here in Australia it is an institution, especially on toast for breakfast. It is something that you either eat cause you love it since you have eaten it since birth, eat because you have spent the time becoming accustomed to it or hate it like Christian does. As brilliant as it is, if you find out what it is made from you would probably be physically ill. Back in 1922 an entrepreneur bought all the leftover organic material from the beer making process from Carlton United Brewers (think Fosters). He then commisioned a chemist to turn it into something useful. The result is Vegemite the greatest edible sludge in the known universe and also high in Iron and B vitamins. Michael Martin Pegasystems Pty Ltd Australia martm@pegasystems.com +61 413-004-018 "Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace" - Victor Stone
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Honestly I do not think anyone, from the bravest Navy SEAL to the average man, can really say what they would do in a situation like that without actually having been through it (if anyone here ever has had a gun put to their head and forced to drive/fly then speak up.) We all say "I would have been brave and just pushed the plane straight into the ground the moment I realised what they were going to do", but be realistic. Our fight to survive is an incredible force and in a situation like that most people would be thinking "don't shoot me, don't shoot me". The adrenalim would be coursing through your body, your blood throbbing in your head. You have to train (or have a lot of experience) to stay calm and rational in a situation like that. Be honest with yourself. However a likely alternative with the second plane is that the pilot was incredibly brave and also incredibly rational and calm in his thinking. As you said this is all hypothetical but then we have brains so that we can extrapolate these kinds of events. That second pilot may have thought "if I try and ditch way before the WTC, the terrorist will shoot, I will die, he will recover the plane and crash it anyway." What instead he may have done was to have thought "get close, get to just before the point of no return. The terrorist will be patting himself on the back at this point, then at the last dying second veer from that building and head for the ground. There probably won't be enough time to recover." Unfortuantley the plan did not work, but if even a shred of this is true then that is one honourable, brave and incredible pilot. Overall though the hypothesis that the terrorist got the pilots to fly within viewing distance of the WTC and then took over is probably more likely. Hopefully we will know more once the FAA reveals the in-flight communications and also find the black boxes which may have further information. regards, Paul Watson Cape Town, South Africa e: paulmwatson@email.com w: vergen.org
The pilot could have stalled the engines, the terrorist would not be able to get it going at all let alone in time to take control of the plane. Or put it in a dive that the plane couldn't pull out of. Both of these and many others I suppose could have been used by the pilot, especially if he did finaly try to do what you have hypothesised. I believe that the terrorists were capable of flying the planes themselves and had killed or overpowered the pilots before flying them into the buildings. The pilot that crashed into the ground in Pennsyvania delibrately crashed to stop the terrorist from having the power to kill fellow Americans. Michael Martin Pegasystems Pty Ltd Australia martm@pegasystems.com +61 413-004-018 "Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace" - Victor Stone
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Someone I work with, who owns a single-engine airplane and has been flying for 20-odd years, said the same thing. When the news reporters were talking about how well trained the terrorists must have been at piloting, this guy said that's a bunch bull. Taking off and landing are the two hardest parts of flying. Once the plane is in the air, steering it is fairly simple. His comment was along the lines of: A few hours with MS Flight Sim would be enough to train them how to steer a large plane. They're not going to be too worried about steering too roughly, because they were planning to crash it anyway. How true... Anyone who has ever played a flight sim knows that steering to visible points is not very difficult. -- Paul "I drank... WHAT?"
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Honestly I do not think anyone, from the bravest Navy SEAL to the average man, can really say what they would do in a situation like that without actually having been through it (if anyone here ever has had a gun put to their head and forced to drive/fly then speak up.) We all say "I would have been brave and just pushed the plane straight into the ground the moment I realised what they were going to do", but be realistic. Our fight to survive is an incredible force and in a situation like that most people would be thinking "don't shoot me, don't shoot me". The adrenalim would be coursing through your body, your blood throbbing in your head. You have to train (or have a lot of experience) to stay calm and rational in a situation like that. Be honest with yourself. However a likely alternative with the second plane is that the pilot was incredibly brave and also incredibly rational and calm in his thinking. As you said this is all hypothetical but then we have brains so that we can extrapolate these kinds of events. That second pilot may have thought "if I try and ditch way before the WTC, the terrorist will shoot, I will die, he will recover the plane and crash it anyway." What instead he may have done was to have thought "get close, get to just before the point of no return. The terrorist will be patting himself on the back at this point, then at the last dying second veer from that building and head for the ground. There probably won't be enough time to recover." Unfortuantley the plan did not work, but if even a shred of this is true then that is one honourable, brave and incredible pilot. Overall though the hypothesis that the terrorist got the pilots to fly within viewing distance of the WTC and then took over is probably more likely. Hopefully we will know more once the FAA reveals the in-flight communications and also find the black boxes which may have further information. regards, Paul Watson Cape Town, South Africa e: paulmwatson@email.com w: vergen.org
Interesting thoughts. I wonder though... If the pilot was smart enough to think to get close to the buildings and trick the terrorist, wouldn't he also have been smart enough to know that there were a lot of other buildings in the area. If he got that close, what could he have crashed into that wasn't a building full of people? It will be interesting to see what information the investigations turn up on this issue. (Huh.. Did you notice that all of the nouns in that sentence start with the letter 'i'? *thinks that's weird*) John