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Comment by antihero | Hacker News Reader

Any attempt at this, the terrorists will have a game plan of how to convince people on the flight to chill out, that they have no mal-intent towards the passengers, etc etc. I mean it might not work, but I reckon they'd put on a really good act and manipulate people heavily into making it feel like they are actually quite safe and it would be a poor decision to try and overrun them.

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So any future attempt requires higher level of competence to pull it off, which means it's probably very unlikely that such an attack will ever happen again.

If we want to prevent hijacking of planes for terrorism purpose, then we'll need to go deeper and fix the root cause of extremism which required tons of focused effort, probably tackling seemly intractable problems. Not spend billions upon billions more on likely ineffectual screening procedure and tools to satisfy the surveillance state.

How would they convince pilots to open the door to let them hijack plane?

> how to convince people on the flight to chill out

My sense is that there is nothing they could say. Hijack a plane, a bunch of men are going to attack you. That's it.

Yes, I'd be someone who jumps up to rush the hijackers. Because I'd have nothing to lose. And if all I do is soak up some damage and die, it may give others behind me a chance.

I'm not especially brave or fearless or anything. But if you back me into a corner with no way to survive, then I'll fight back like a caged, starving rat.

People freaking out and being aggressive on planes about much less these days...

And yet what you’re describing has never happened to the best of my knowledge (at least in the west).

I don't see any situation where that works. The only variation I can think of that might work is enough hijackers to control the passengers, which seems unlikely outside of a lightly booked flight or small plane.

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