Re:A Sensible Fix For TSA Security Lines
by rayiner on Thursday May 26, 2016 @01:56PM
(#11780079)
Also, hijackings and airplane bombings were common before modern security protocols (in the late 1960's and 1970's): http://listverse.com/2012/10/27/top-10-us-airline-hijackings... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/world/middleeast/airline-h... ("By the mid-1970s, at least 150 planes had been “skyjacked” in the United States alone[.]"); http://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2014/06/Successful... (FAA chart showing dramatic reduction in hijackings after introduction of airport screening in 1973).
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Sure, they were common but the media wasn't as prevalent. For example, I know of none of those before 2000s. But post-2000 I know of every single hijack and plane crashed because the internet and media shoved it on my face because it's always on every website. I bet that if there is a hijacking tomorrow, it will in HN front page (even though it's a tech website). That's how much these things multiply. Whereas, a bus crash or some other bombing will never make it to HN web page.
Doesn't your point cut the other way? I.e. if we got rid of all airline security and went back to the days of a dozen airline hijackings a year, wouldn't the pervasiveness of the media make the impact much worse than it was in the 1970s?
And even if you totally secure a cockpit, they hijackers could always take hostages from among the passengers.