Advice from a pilot;
Some things to look for: groups or pairs of men, a passenger talking to themselves, speaking Arabic, watching crewmembers (this is different than looking), staring at the cockpit door, long stays or multiple trips to the lavatory, reading a book but not turning any pages, nervousness, being unusual by trying to fit in, taking pictures/videos, not making eye contact. When you are at the boarding area and on the plane if you notice a suspicious passenger, look for others. How many? If it is one or two then they could be planning on bombing the aircraft or just making observations of crew procedures. 6 or more? Then this cell’s objective would be hijacking the plane by brute force. Also remember that there are sleepers that try to blend in with the other passengers and could be very hard to notice. A website reports a well-dressed man in custody that was also a passenger on Delta Flight 253. After an incident, your entire plane might be delayed for security and they will treat everyone as suspects. Also expect the government and airline to try to cover up parts or all of an event.
It's sort of like neighbourhood watch isn't it?
That pilot will be fired in about a week from now...
"nervousness, being unusual by trying to fit in"
"not making eye contact"
Isn't that Iggy?
Better yet, why aren't people on the ground in charge of airport security weeding out these characters? The Israelis do it and have been at it sucessfully for at least 20 years. But then the Israelis don't give a hoot about political correctness. They know from experience that bleeding heart sentiments can get you killed.
JMD has it right. Time to start the Israeli method.
Can't believe I'm agreeing with Kathy but, my first thought is you don't want this info "out there". On the other hand, now you watch for those who are trying not to be as described. With all passengers looking for these characteristics, does that add another layer of visual monitoring?
How to recognize and fight a terrorist on a plane,just watch a Bruce Willis movie.I think the key is to be very aware in the waiting areas,during boarding card retrieval,security screening and the boarding process.Too often passengers are more concerned about the absurdity of the screening process as opposed to paying attention to the activities of those waiting in line.Same as the boarding area,once through the screening there's a sense of relief,having navigated whatever obstacles that could have caused you to miss the flight,all too often this when we become the most complacent.
When you have muslims in headscarfs checking your carry on baggage doesn't it all seem kind of pointless. In my view, as I have stated before, when a woman chooses to wear this political statement she is muslim first and foremost so I worry she will obey the edicts of her theocracy.
Was the muslim Canada Customs officer who angerly told the muslim lady at his counter coming to make a speech about sharia in Toronto that she was not to question sharia law fired or disciplined, doubtful?
I fully agree with this courageous pilot that we never see government employees fired for base incompetence in any of these serious incidents. They just add another layer of the bureacracy to monitor each incremental step in these useless regulations that THEY ignored in allowing this 12/25 incident to happen.
My buddy and his family flew to Israel a few years ago for a visit out of London and the El Al security was excellent with officers moving down the lines asking questions, checking bags prior to ever getting to scanning machines. They were looking for terrorists not their bombs and those that fit the profile, muslim male primarily, were checked and rechecked. My friend in talking to Israelies knew the marshalls on each flight were paying special attention to their profiled passengers. That's real security.
O's gonna make enemies of them there Muslims if O doesn't stop.
(Pssst! Don't tell anyone that the "Nigerian bomber" is a black Muslim.)
...-
"Boy, now he's in real trouble; Obama administration revokes U.S. visa of accused Nigerian bomber
Under the category of looks-like-about-12-days-too-late, the State Department has announced it is revoking the U.S. visa for suspected Nigerian underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
That will show him and who knows how many others that the Obama administration really means business.
The 23-year-old al-Qaeda-trained terrorist was on a terrorist watch list because he had traveled to Yemen for training. His father also warned U.S. officials he was dangerous. President Obama admitted Tuesday that U.S. intelligence experts knew much about the man but "failed to connect the dots" causing a "potentially disastrous" situation."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/01/nigerian-underwear-bomber.html
Here's my tips on How to recognize a terrorist on a plane.......
some things to look for...
if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....if he's a muslim.....
Failure to make eye contact? Oh,my ... our intrepid transportation safety personnel would no doubt have to go off for a session at re-education camp to learn that eye-contact is considered "disrespectful" in certain cultures (and I suspect that some educational sociologist somewhere could make a similar case for all of the other behaviours as well -- "Now, now, reading the book without turning the pages is just another way of constructing meaning ....").
Perhaps, in the wake of the Knicker-bomber, we should make greater use of what Peter Gzowski once called "bum-sniffing dogs".
Posted by: JMD at January 6, 2010 11:56 AM
Bang on, JMD. Security officials in North America and Europe are trying to re-invent the wheel from a politically correct perspective. Kind of like building a square wheel, from my perspective...but I digress.
It's high time we start to emulate the highly successful airport security methods of the Israeli's in general, and El Al airlines specifically.
Garry- I think Kathy's comment about being fired has more to do with his comment about men speaking Arabic.
Making eye contact is verbotten in most big cities. It will result in being hounded by a panhandler, or being shot by a gangster, under the right conditions. Even in tame western Canada, eye contact can lead to traffic mayhem.
Only tangentially related, my friend, pilot in command of a 'jumbo jet' had his nail clippers removed from his luggage before he readied his aircraft bound for Beijing. He calmly explained to the security guard that he didn't need the nail clippers to crash the airplane. The joke went right over the guard's head.
Here's how to end in-flight terrorism: Mo' said Allah won't allow access to the 72 virgins should little Ahmed enter heaven smelling like a pig. OK, lets make it manditory to have electric frying pans installed on all airplanes where bacon, pork chops and garlic sausage will be fried on every flight. German Sheperds will be posted outside of all lavatories too. My guess is Ahmed will be well behaved and sitting up straight. If not, nude women will be shown on the in-flight entertainment systems. If this doesn't work, Jewish Torah quotes will be played over the P.A. system. I prefer my many layers of security to that of political correctness and hit and miss airport scanners.
dp, there's always "the bird".
Hey Eskimo, that's for warding off vampires ;-) Seriously though, don't forget many of these jihadists go boozing around bars and strip clubs before they set out on their mission.
As the pilot says, the passengers are the last and most effective line of defence. People have to, if necessary, become loud and obnoxious if they perceive that a suspicious looking person is NOT getting a thorough going-over.
If you get kicked off the flight and arrested, it's still better than being scattered over the fields 30,000 feet below.
Until the security of American airlines is ramped up to Israeli standards, I'll take the train,thanks.
Let's face it we the people are expected to stop the Islamists in mid-air, our governments are so afraid that they might offend the Official Muslim Organizations that they'll sacrifice the rest of us at the alter of PCness and appeasement/pandering. So keep alert and if you see a man with his crotch on fire chances are he's Muslim terrorist's hell bend on blowing up the plane.
Cha-ching.
What good is technology if one doesn't have the will or knowledge to use it? I do not object to gadgets. I object to people not taking action because they are afraid of getting sued. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should never have boarded a plane. He was on a watch list. His own father warned the Americans. Even the British warned the Americans. The only gadget airport security needed was their brains and they failed to use them. One didn't even need extra vigilance for this instance.
Mr. Plante is right. Passengers, as well as the crew, need to be not only aware but willing to jump to action if the government will not.
And here when my dog was sniffing crotches I thought he was just being rude. Actually he was working diligently to protect me and my family!
Hey Tex,
You're right about the boozing and the peeler bars, but they would NEVER mess with Arnold Ziffle!
Eskimo:
You're about two weeks too late. We were making jokes about "BACON airlines" the next day.
What the Hell are we paying such high taxes for if airport security personnel won't do their jobs and expect airline passengers to do their jobs for them -- for nothing?
It's time for Israeli-type surveillance and interrogation if you're part of the demographic who's been blowing everything up in the past 25 years. It's not racial profiling, it's called COMMON SENSE.
We not only need brains at work in airport security, but the courage of our convictions which tells us that blowing up airplanes and hundreds of innocent passengers is NOT ON.
My G*d, we've dumbed everything down so much so as not to offend ANYONE that we've put everyone at risk and in danger. It's ludicrous the lengths to which we'll go in order not to offend even though it means that the security of millions is compromised.
And, let's not even get started on what it's costing us. If Muslims don't want to get pulled aside by security in airports, they'd better damned well stop blowing up airplanes, ships, embassies, and our troops. It's that simple.
And, if airport/airline security is for real, they need to begin targeting members of the demographic that's causing all the problems.
Then I won't be offended.
I was talking to a fellow who worked in an butcher shop. One of the ways they would get sheep onto the killing floor was by the use of a Judas Goat. The goat would calmly walk onto the killing floor and all the sheep would follow. The goat would survive and receive a reward for his efforts while no sheep survived the slaughter.
I would humbly suggest that airlines use a similar method. As the aircraft is loaded they make all their passengers aware that they are loading a pig into the cargo hold. Let everyone know that the pig will not come in contact with any passenger unless the aircraft is crashed at which time the pig being in the fore of the craft would have its splattered remains well mixed with any human remains.
To really solve any problems, misconceptions and law suits, why not have Muslim and non-Muslim airlines. Segregate the piss out of the populations, just like the Israeli's have done. They do it for their own protection and longevity.
Let the Muslims have their own airlines, let them build their own airports in their own countries, so they don't have to mix with the infidels. We have enough problems getting along with each other, without having these radical followers of a religion of hate and death and destruction trying to force their will on us.
Good fences, great neighbours!!
I figured out a very accurate method for weeding out terrorists and it is brilliant. I'm suprised no one else has thought of it. I'm going to call it "racial profiling".
Everybody laughed at Archie Bunker when he said "everybody get a "rod" as they're getting on the plane, see. That way nobody would dare highjack the plane because they would get shot by other passengers. When you get off the plane - you just put the 'rod' in the basket and everyone is safe." Or words to that effect.
I laughed then ----- now it is sounding a lot more sensible than what Chairman O has going to protect passengers. Just thinking, ya know?
I often wonder how we can expect to catch a terrorists at the security check-in when some of those doing the checking look frightening to me.
Who does the security checks on security employees?
Who checks the behavior of these employees?
If you think I'm joking, stop and look at who the security employees are at YYZ,YUL or YVR!
Shortly after 9/11 I did quite a bit of flying. Muslims were SWARMING all over the airport.
They flocked to flights for two reasons:
1) to provoke a profiling incident in order to sue
2) to provide cover for jihadist intelligence agents which were trying to test our security and response.
To this day, muslims provoke security responses to test our system and see what they can get away with. They do so with plausibly deniable excuses which not only keep them out of jail, but give them fodder for propaganda and lawsuits.
Flying on an airplane is not a right. Government has the authority to search EVERYONE on board an aircraft. Searching everyone is a waste of resources; it fatigues the security personnel and dogs making it less likely they will be effective.
The bottom line is that we SHOULD and MUST begin to use common sense about what and who we search. White-haired old grandmas are not likely to have explosives in their Depends.
It's true that a terrorist could look like Tim McVeigh and we certainly should conduct random searches of average, everyday white guys. But the physical and behavioral profile of likely terrorists and their intelligence collectors is painfully obvious.
Even if you convinced me that they would go out of their way to find non-Arabic or non-African or non-whatever looking people, that only raises the costs and risks of their operations in the search for such people.
If a terrorist group wants to kill people, they will eventually kill people. The way to defeat them is to make it as difficult as possible to conduct intelligence gathering and operations. This could delay their actions, disrupt their operations, and expose them to greater risk of getting caught or screwing up the attack.
Our security measures must be tight and deployed in depth. We CANNOT have the security checkpoint be the last line of defense. Security must extend from the point of purchasing the ticket to the baggage check, to the security screening, to boarding, to the air marshal on board the planes.
POWinCA, great comment altogether.
" ... The way to defeat [terrorists] is to make it as difficult as possible to conduct intelligence gathering and operations. This could delay their actions, disrupt their operations, and expose them to greater risk of getting caught or screwing up the attack."
Exactly.
Why is it WE who are bending over backwards to make things easy for Muslim terrorists by our lax security measures -- or such overwrought ones that, as POWinCa points out, fatigues security personnel? In not wanting to offend, our misguided "tolerance," "openness," and "diversity" is running amok.
Where's the tolerance for our own people, our own culture here in the West? Where's the tolerance for our children and grandchildren who are inheriting the mushy -- and, ultimately, dangerous, suicidal -- multicultural love-fest we've created by refusing to get real, to get tough, with mass murderers?
Blond hair, blue eye's and a southern Baptist accent = TERRORIST.
Remember every man or woman’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist (or visa versa). In our new global governance who gets the free pass?
Who have become the enemy in their own lands, and who are protected by the politically correct liberal elite?
It seems clear to me that if we stayed out of “their” lands, and we refused to let them into ours, we wouldn’t be having some of these little issues - such as having all our human and civil rights illegally revoked.
”Their” lands referring to the peoples and cultures that openly shout “destroy the west”. Most by declaring and initiating ideological and cultural warfare by means of stealth and deceit, the rest is initiated with hard core, national, psychological trauma.
This is enabled by a segment of our societies, because it sure as hell is not the majority of westerners who would allow this totalitarian abomination to befall our great countries.
By the way, Will women in Burkas be subjected to the new full body scans that photograph the body under cloths at airports?
Ron Paul in the 2008 Republican primary debate:
"They [Arabs/Muslims/Al Qaida] don't want our troops on the Arabian Peninsula. We have no need for our national security to have troops on the Arabian Peninsula. Going into Iraq and Afghanistan, and threatening Iran is the worst thing we can do for our national security. I am less safe; the American people are less safe; it's the policy that's wrong. We need a new foreign policy that says we ought to mind our own business, bring our troops home; defend this country; defend our borders."
Works for me, but even though Obama is following the Cheney - Bush war policy completely, Cheney attacks him. Why does anyone on the right listen to this insane, chicken-hawk, war monger? Oil lust and flag-waving pride and hubris, apparently. Even oil isn't a sensible motivation. American oil companies are already exploring and drilling in deep ocean waters because the Arabs won't give them any new oil leases. Why are we doing this other than pride and arrogance - to defend Israel? The Israelis seem quite capable of defending themselves. Our wars are making them more threatened, too. Bin-Laden want's us to bankrupt ourselves fighting there, and we are.
We stand in endless lines and shuffle forward in our stocking feet and have any remaining dignity spindled, stapled and mutilated by our own incompetent security apparatus only to still get on a plane with a suicidal knicker bomber. The terrorists know we can never stop all of them. They already won years ago; it's just a matter of when we admit it to ourselves. Yeah, I know; it's unAmerican not to continue pouring money and blood into unending warfare with stone-age tribals in order to prop up oil-rich sheiks and corrupt dictators. How did we get so far from our first principle of foreign policy of no entangling alliances? Our friends the banks and oil companies who feed and control our political class.