Flying on September 11

As I write this, I'm on a plane. I'm spending most of today on planes. I got up at 5am just to get to the plane on time, although due to a leak in the plane's hydraulic system, I'm not getting to Dallas until mid-afternoon and won't see National Airport in DC until around 9pm local time. Flying on September 11 is an interesting exercise. It's clearly something most people think twice about. A woman getting off the plane because the delay made her decide to just go home again instead of flying to wherever she was going even commented something to that effect to other passengers as she was getting off. That seemed pretty tacky, especially when the people you are saying it to are going to go ahead and fly on a plane you're currently abandoning. I wouldn't doubt we were all thinking about it anyway, but you just don't say it, right

Flying off on a complete tangent for a moment (ha, an airplane metaphor to launch my segue!) not saying stuff like that reminds me of a short story I have only read vicariously through Trevor. He was telling me about a story he read in an Asimov science fiction magazine where one guy is telling another guy that they have to be watchful for time travellers, but that they should be reasonably easy to spot because of all the unspoken, unwritten rules we have in our society. The time traveller would have no way of knowing them, because they aren't truly obvious, they aren't important enough for anyone to ever talk about, but when violated stand out like a sore thumb. His companion laughs at the idea, takes out a cigarette, and taps it on its case before lighting it. The first guy tells him he's now caught him, because people don't tap cigarettes because of how they are processed... and kills him. There was some context there as to why the time traveller would need to be killed that I didn't know, since I hadn't read the story, and still don't know because Trevor never explained that part and I still haven't read the story, so the killing came as kind of an extra shock in Trevor's rendition that made me laugh in surprise. So I have to wonder - did the woman getting off the plane come from another time where she'd been briefed on what 9/11 was, but had not internalization of what it would really mean to be an air traveller only three years later who actually lived through that day? I don't know, but I wasn't taking any chances, so after some explanation, I got the flight attendants to dump the body.

(For those of you far too serious minded, no, of course I didn't kill anyone. That you would even hesitate long enough to wonder, for shame

Getting back, though, to what I really set out to write about in this entry, it was interesting that I was able to get the cheapest round-trip ticket for a coast-to-coast trip I've ever purchased, $202, to make this trip. There were lots of black-out dates on which you couldn't fly at that fare, but September 11 was the only Saturday I recall being available and that made it possible for me to take a long weekend and not use up an extraordinary amount of my vacation time. That's important if I want to be able to take off the entire weeks around Thanksgiving and Christmas, which I do

I've never hesitated about flying on September 11 the last couple years, although this is the first year since 2001 that I've had any occasion to actually do so. Apparently, plenty of people agree with me, at least at these prices, as when the flight attendant was telling passengers about their options during the plane's repair delay, she mentioned that every American flight out of Seattle today was fully booked. The reason I don't hesitate and think the modestly improved security is all that's necessary if it's even necessary at all, is that I really think the kind of hijacking that took place on September 11, 2001 can't happen again. In fact, I think the opportunity to do such a hijacking was over even before that day was out

Why? Because the other passengers now understand that the stakes have been raised and are no longer likely to sit by complacently and allow something like that to happen. In the world pre-9/11, a hijacked airplane in the United States would have most passengers feeling resigned to the fact that they were now taking a side trip to someplace like Cuba where the plane would land and there'd be a pretty good chance of negotiation or daring rescue or something that would mean they'd eventually get home safely. As soon as the Jihadistan terrorists proved they were willing to kill themselves as well as everyone on board by slamming a plane into a building, as soon as they showed they weren't going to even try to survive, everyone else knew their own survival wasn't very likely at all around those kind of people

That the fourth plane of that day crashed in rural Pennsylvania is the first piece of evidence I have that such a change had happened. The people on that plane were communicating via cell phones with their families on the ground and once they understood what was going on, they stopped whatever they were doing that had them relatively contained at the back of the plane, and they surged forward to struggle with the terrorists. The plane still crashed, but not where the bad guys intended

Looking forward to the shoe bomber guy that we can all thank for needing to remove our shoes every time we go through security, he was subdued as soon as people around him caught on that he was up to something nefarious. We didn't even need armed air marshals to stop him (although I have no problem with the idea of armed air marshals on flights) because nobody was going to sit back and let him kill them all and nobody needed convincing that this was a potential or even likely outcome if they allowed themselves to be held at bay by threats. The stories a couple months back about the odd group of Middle Eastern men that kept getting up and using the restroom one after another and seemed so odd to the passengers, including a woman who very publicly wrote about the incident (Amy something? On plane, no Internet, very bad!) further showed that there wasn't going to be any hesitation about keeping a close eye on anything remotely out of the ordinary. So we've all been told they are some kind of musical band and that their odd behavior was just seeming odd because they were Middle Eastern? I have no problem with that. What's the opportunity cost of not reacting to your suspicions in this kind of case?

Granted, like in any war of technology, the technology keeps getting better on both sides. So the terrorists figured out a technology (get five guys with boxcutters on a flight, take over the plane, and fly it into a big building) and the passengers figured out a countering technology (keep an eye on your fellow passengers for weird behavior and err on the side of caution by subduing anyone that seems to get out of hand.) There's nothing that says terrorists won't come up with something more effective - thus the ongoing discussions by people thinking about these things, like whether terrorists could build a bomb out of a bunch of innocuous parts brought on by several of them. But I think we, the people that don't want to die at the hands of Jihadis, took a bigger technological leap the very same day they brought out their latest creation. My government may struggle with when it's okay to racially profile, but I sure as hell don't have such constraints. I start racially profiling the second I get near a plane

My only other thought is about why it's probably safer to fly on September 11 than any other day of the year is that we're all thinking in these ways far more on September 11 than any other day - passengers, security, flight attendents, everyone. Pulling something crazy off on this day is undoubtedly way harder than it would be on any other. It's kind of a "lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place" kind of view. And if you've read this, you've both devoted some pretty good time and I was right about at least my own plane.