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Comment by heeen2 | Hacker News Reader

The issue is with luggage I guess. The leaving passengers luggage will have to be removed for safety as it could be dangerous. If you don't board but they already started loading luggage your bag will also be unloaded again. So the aircraft would have to taxi back to a gate where the passenger and their stuff can be unloaded, delaying the flight even further. Which might make even more passengers want to disembark

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> The leaving passengers luggage will have to be removed for safety as it could be dangerous.

I really do hope all luggage gets inspected /before/ anyone boards the plane.

I collected those TSA inspected slips when I was flying through SFO a lot. However I did not get one every single time. I suppose time does not allow manually inspecting every 40 pound piece of luggage every passenger brings. Plus luggage does have less strict rules about what you can have in them as opposed to hand luggage which makes it a bigger risk all by itself

It's not a time issue, there's just no need. Radiation-based screening is sufficient most of the time. Physical bag searches happen when the radiation-based screening indicates something or when it cannot produce a clear image. Bags may also be randomly "selected" for a physical search.

The majority of checked baggage is screened without the need for a physical bag search.[0]

[0] https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening

That would only be a reasonable concern if a terrorist could determine in advance which flight is going to be sitting on the tarmac for a few hours.

Unfortunately, it is realistic to assume that they can, because they can make a flight sit on the tarmac for a few hours. It's not that hard to get an insider in who can do that.

I'd say the real objection here is that planes are not all that special as a place where people gather. The reason planes (legitimately!) require extra security and concern is that they are flying missiles. (Even the ability to divert a plane is, at a national scale, not really that interesting.) If they aren't flying, they aren't really that interesting of a terrorist target.

Okay, that's a good point.

But given the number of terrorists that are willing to die from their cause through a suicide attack, it still seems like there's a very tiny risk of a terrorist organization going through all of the trouble to have their agent sneak a bomb on board through checked luggage and board the plane, then arrange for the plane to be held on the ground long enough to allow deboarding for their agent to sneak off the plane.

It seems much simpler to just find a fanatic that will go down with the plane. (and through his death, it makes it harder to track down the exact people involved in the terrorist network)

This is true for fanatic terrorism. But there are other threats, from more politically based terrorism, where suicide bombings are less common, to things like extortion.

Still, if someone is not wiling to die for their cause, are they willing to get on a plane that they planted a bomb on and trust that their organization will come through and stop the plane before it takes off?

Seems much easier to just bribe an airport worker "Hey buddy, I'll give you $5000 if you put this bag of "drugs" on flight 1234"

They always have this option. The balance you have to find is: After how long of a wait is the benefit for society of being able to leave without removal of the luggage worth it compared to the enlarged risk of attacks.

It clearly isn't "you can do this all the time", because then you would not need to pay the 5000$, or have the risk that that buddy rats you out. I'm not sure I want to be responsible to find the right amount of time.

Most terrorist are fine with sacrificing themselves though. So why would they try to get off?

Most? Do you have data on that?

Not a tarmac.

https://aerosavvy.com/aviation-terminology/

Not a tarmac.

https://aerosavvy.com/aviation-terminology/

That's called PPBM (Positive Passenger-Bag Match). However, PPBM is not required on US domestic flights. I had a few occurrences where I checked my bags several hours before my flight and had those bags arriving before me (on an earlier flight) at my destination airport, waiting for me in the airline's luggage office. The TSA relies on screening every bag to prevent incidents, rather than assumptions-based reasoning.

There is a PPBM requirement for international flights though, including those leaving from the US. While security is the reasoning behind it, I suspect that customs and immigration compliance also play a role.

That could be fixed though. If the Airline let the luggage go the final destination, they could charge (maybe $100) to return the luggage once it arrives at the destination. This would also decentivise people from trying to deboard unless it was really important.

This does not solve the problem GP has raised.

If getting off the plane early while it's on the ground is valuable, why not charge for it? That way people who really do want to get off can? It's hard to say that deboarding early is a right, because that would imply your rights change if you were in the air or not.

I think gp's concerns would be addressed by making this transaction legal and letting passengers and airlines arrive at a fair price.

wow and they would lose it half the time for sure, no thanks

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