Ireland's Potential 911...an interesting scenario

Hobbes

There would be much easier ways. Try pointing a plane at a landmark that is tiny. With the towers they kind of stood out, and during 9/11 they couldn't find the whitehouse so they hit the pentagon instead.

The terrorists would have to set off some kind of fire to give a marker.

Also boston airport security was insanely poor around that time. Heck you could get onto an airplane without even having a ticket. It was that easy at that time.

Btw a few weeks ago when the warship was in harbour they went to red alert when a cessna flew over dublin. The US were ready to shoot that down. It wouldn't surprise me if the US brought the arms to deal with the situation.

bus77

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
I'm sure that they very much would like to kill bush or indeed any major US official.

Like to kill and mounting a big operation like a plane hyjacking are too very differnt things.
It's not just about murder/death/kill with these people.
Yes the attacks on the US and Spain were designed to kill but there was also symbolic value attached to each of them. It the US it was to act as a rallying call to other Muslims by hitting the biggest physical sign (other than aircraft carriers) of American power, in Spain it was a messege to collaborators and to the world that America cant protect her allies.

It would'nt suprise me if they launched an attack on a country he was visiting, but not at Bush himself.

Sand

a pilot would have to be fairly motivated to go through years of training just for the opportnity of killing himself in a suicide attack. I guessing most people who are smart enough to pass all of those exmas would probably turn to peaceful means to further their supported causes.

Heh - had to laugh

bus77

Sorry but I have to ask, I see the name DublinWriter and then I see this..

Originally posted by DublinWriter
Here’s an interesting scenario.

Bush comes to visit Dublin next week. Terrorists hijack plane leaving Dublin airport knowing he will address the Dail at a given time.

Your not looking for material for a book from here are you?

BlitzKrieg

...*sigh*



worse thing to happen because of 9/11 (apart from loss of human life of course) is the belief that terrorists can only attack by stealing jumbo jets and crashing them.


So lets spend loads of money on jets to protect us from kamikaze jumbo jets. Meanwhile a little brown parcel slips into leincster house (prob cause of underpaid security :rolleyes: ) and kills both bertie and bush in an explosion.



I remind everyone that before al quieda the two most effective terrorist movements never hijacked planes...


security is balanced. enforce it on the ground at the airport etc.


also if your being that paranoid about planes how about flights from around the world heading to dublin? Couldnt they pick one up at london stansted or istanbul etc etc. let it fly its course then take over in the last minutes and aim down?


finally. Bin ladin would much perfer an *Attempt* on Bush's life rather then to kill him because Buish being the ever idiot would prob reply with emergancy powers and the invasion of another 2 middle eastern countries...

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by bus77
They dont want to kill Bush...

Well either they do or they don't. Make your mind up.

I don't how the effort required to kill a US president is less than the effort required to hijack a plane. I would have thought it would take an even bigger effort. Airplanes were used because they were a "soft"target at that time.

I don't think the message attacking Spain was that US can't protect their allies. But that if you aligned yourself with the US you would then become a target. But in fact anyone is a target in actual fact, so its a bit of a woolly message. IMO.

jackofalltrades

Spend a few hours with Microsoft Flight Simulator and tell us if you still think it's that hard. Flying a passenger jet isn't all that difficult. Landing it safely is the hard part.

I've actually played MS Flight Sim quite a bit over the last few years. Anything to do with the ground (landing on it or hitting it, as the case may be) is quite hard. I've talked to pilots how have said that while it is a good simulation it still lacks the ability to accurately mimic a flying a real plane. The feedback that you would get from a joystick or a yoke would not be enough to train you for the precision need to stirke a plane at high speed into a relatively small area.

bus77

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Well either they do or they don't. Make your mind up.

I have "made my mind up" Al Queda(I asume thats who were talking about) do not want to kill Bush. They are absolutly delighted with the way he's done things so far and would'nt want that to stop.

And there's another option regarding plane attacks. Take a pilots family hostage. The ra did that up in the north with truck drivers and got them to drive into british army barracks with bomb laden trucks. Ive never heard of it being done with a pilot before though.

No sort of security messures would protect from it anyway and those new security doors they put in pilots cabins would certainly make sure the pasangers couldnt get at him.

chewy

whats all this about the dail dublin writer he's not going to the dail

oscarBravo

Originally posted by jackofalltrades
I've actually played MS Flight Sim quite a bit over the last few years. Anything to do with the ground (landing on it or hitting it, as the case may be) is quite hard.

I've never found hitting the ground to be difficult in any flight simulator (or in a real plane for that matter)

I've talked to pilots how have said that while it is a good simulation it still lacks the ability to accurately mimic a flying a real plane.

I'm not suggesting that you can learn to be a successful suicide pilot using MSFS alone; just that it's not as difficult to crash a plane as it is to land it.

The feedback that you would get from a joystick or a yoke would not be enough to train you for the precision need to stirke a plane at high speed into a relatively small area.

How fast do you suppose a passenger jet needs to be going to inflict serious damage on a building?

The Beer Baron

Right so I'm too lazy to read the whole post but...

Well we do have an airforce, it's called the RAF, same AF that patrolled our skies post 911 to guard against a simular attack against Sellafield and the like.

Embarrasing of course.

Afaik there's gonna be a few planes circling the skies during JR Bush's visit, F-22's or whatever, they'll be up in the air whilst he's travelling- I also heard they'll have helicopters, Ireland ain't that big, considering the range of missiles by either helicopters (eg an Apache) or a jet fighter and the target aquisition range thereof...

DublinWriter

Noooo...I'm not looking for material for a book, but I could just imagine something along those awful, and mostly ghostwritten, Tom Clancy novels.

It's funny how an awful lot of people said in this thread that hitting a specific object on the ground is hard to do at speed in a commercial jet airliner. I've been reading some of the conspiracy-theroists stuff on 911 and they basically say that while hitting the twin towers was relatively easy, hitting the Pentagon, which is basically a five-story building is next to impossible, even for an experenied pilot. The lack of recogisable airplane parts and small size of the impact hole has made a lot of people suspicious about the whole incident.

As an aside, some of the systems on the F22s are really scary and can detect small arms fire from a few miles up - as happened when they nuked a wedding party outside Baghdad a few weeks ago where its the custom to shoot off a few celebratory rounds with your AK47 after the bride says 'I do'.

...just a warning to any weddiing parties on the Northside!

bonkey

Originally posted by DublinWriter
I've been reading some of the conspiracy-theroists stuff on 911 and they basically say that while hitting the twin towers was relatively easy, hitting the Pentagon, which is basically a five-story building is next to impossible, even for an experenied pilot.

Have you checked how much area the Pentagon actually covers on the ground? The pilot may have been lucky in hitting an outside wall, but missing the entire Pentagon would take some doing.

jc

bonkey

As a matter of interest....sparked by a comment from gandalf.....

Have any commercial flights been hijacked since the September 11 ones?

jc

DublinWriter

No, but about three weeks after 911 I was flying back to Brussles where I worked at the time, with Ryanair.

I had an outside aisle seat. About halfway through the flight I noticed the hostess open the pilot's cabin, enter, and chat away to the pilots for about 5 mintues, all the time with the cabin door wide open.

Now 5 minutes is acutally a long time! Sit looking at your watch for 5 minutes and you'll see what I mean.

I remember being really shocked at how lax they were, and their typical Oirish 'ah shure' approach to security.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by DublinWriter
.....

As an aside, some of the systems on the F22s are really scary and can detect small arms fire from a few miles up - as happened when they nuked a wedding party outside Baghdad a few weeks ago where its the custom to shoot off a few celebratory rounds with your AK47 after the bride says 'I do'.

...just a warning to any weddiing parties on the Northside!

Its amazing since none of them are in Iraq.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by The Beer Baron
Right so I'm too lazy to read the whole post but...

Well we do have an airforce, it's called the RAF, same AF that patrolled our skies post 911 to guard against a simular attack against Sellafield and the like.

Embarrasing of course.

Afaik there's gonna be a few planes circling the skies during JR Bush's visit, F-22's or whatever, they'll be up in the air whilst he's travelling- I also heard they'll have helicopters, Ireland ain't that big, considering the range of missiles by either helicopters (eg an Apache) or a jet fighter and the target aquisition range thereof...

Using Helicopters is a ridiculous suggestion. There is no such thing as AIRWOLF.

If you had read the post you'd realise that theres no air weapon that could make hundreds of tons of airline vanish mid air. (unless you're still thinking of Airwolf) So what you are suggesting is making an Airliner crash uncontrolled into the Dublin City, which would rain destruction on about a half mile to a mile of the city.

While I have no doubt that they probably will be air patrols by UK aircraft, probably Tornados or F15's from the UK, or even our own in their new shiny trainers, theres very little they could do about an aircraft doing 200-300mph 5 miles from the city center. It would cover that in about 2 mins.

Aircover would just be a placebo for people who don't know any better.

gandalf

Again I think this plane hijack fear is now baseless. Do you really think after Sepetember 11th that people will sit on an airliner thats just been hijacked and do nothing. They won't they will now fight.

These murderers will find another way to kill people like they did in Spain.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by gandalf
Again I think this plane hijack fear is now baseless. Do you really think after Sepetember 11th that people will sit on an airliner thats just been hijacked and do nothing. They won't they will now fight.

These murderers will find another way to kill people like they did in Spain.

I wouldn't say baseless. I'd say greatly reduced. Its also a lot harder to get into the flight deck now. Also there are a few airliners around the world that are missing. Noone knows where they are. You'd never know where they would turn up.

ZENER

Interesting thread with some excellent theories !! Just one thing for all ye potential terrorists though - I'm pretty sure that Mr Bush will not be arriving at Dublin Airport but at Baldonnel as is usual for these sort of visits.

ZEN

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by ZENER
Interesting thread with some excellent theories !! Just one thing for all ye potential terrorists though - I'm pretty sure that Mr Bush will not be arriving at Dublin Airport but at Baldonnel as is usual for these sort of visits.

ZEN

Can Baldonnel take AirForce one? Has it landed there before. I didn't think it had. I didn't think Baldonnel could take a 747. But I don't know. Does anyone know for sure?

oscarBravo

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
I wouldn't say baseless. I'd say greatly reduced. Its also a lot harder to get into the flight deck now. Also there are a few airliners around the world that are missing. Noone knows where they are. You'd never know where they would turn up.

Source?

ZENER

I have it from a good source that he will arrive at Baldonnel by chopper. AF1 will arrive at Dublin at about the same time from the UK I think - all cloak and dagger stuff with men in suits talking to their wrists !!

ZEN

chewy

he coming to dublin i mean he's only suppoed to be in the country 18 hours in total
... shannon airport balmoral... um shannon airport... turkey....

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by oscarBravo
Source?

I remember reading an article in Flight about it.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by ZENER
I have it from a good source that he will arrive at Baldonnel by chopper. AF1 will arrive at Dublin at about the same time from the UK I think - all cloak and dagger stuff with men in suits talking to their wrists !!

ZEN

Most likely he'll transfer from AF1 to chopper in Dublin Airport.

gaelic cowboy

Originally posted by gaelic cowboy
I reckon if there ever was god forbid an actual attempt to do something here it would probally be the bomb in a bag left in a pub variety.

Originally posted by bus77
The ones full of drink

He is a pioneer actually

gaelic cowboy

quote:

---

Originally posted by ZENER
I have it from a good source that he will arrive at Baldonnel by chopper. AF1 will arrive at Dublin at about the same time from the UK I think - all cloak and dagger stuff with men in suits talking to their wrists !!

ZEN

---

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Most likely he'll transfer from AF1 to chopper in Dublin Airport.

He is only coming to Clare into shannon and then on too dromoland castle for the conference he won't even see dublin unless he happens to look out the window of AF1 on the way home.

pat kenny

Unimportance is our best defence.
Might be slightly at risk when bush visits but apart from that no one really cares about us, terrorists like to make a big impression and we arn't it.
Only other targets that might get attacked are U.S. or British embasys because they are soft targets but losses would be well sustainable in the grand scale of things.
If I had to give Ireland a risk level for a major attack I'd give it 1 out of 10.
An attack on a nuclear instalation in britain might be our biggest risk, but hey you could get hit by a bus don't lose any sleep.

gaelic cowboy

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Most likely he'll transfer from AF1 to chopper in Dublin Airport.

He will land at shannon I bet with probally american navy stuff off shore maybe a boat or sub I wouldn't in the least bit be surprised at that. Then it's off to dromoland castle if i remember correctly thats why all the people in shannon were veted by the gaurds I heard and read that last peice in the papers.