Quote:
Originally Posted by TheHip41
so i got a PM from a random today:
From: Saint_Ajora
Join: Mar 2009
Posts: 5
Subject: have you ever had any hand to hand combat training?
as someone who has, there is 0 chance that 4 terrorists, if they are who the 9/11 commission reports says they are, lets a cockpit get overtaken by 38 americans. they were all supposedly armed with knives and each one of them would have had extensive hand to hand combat training. 4 people armed with knives defending a narrow cockpit space vs 38 untrained americans, 18 who were women. you actually think that passengers of flight 93 could have overtaken the cockpit? think battle of thermopylae.
srsly, please explain flight 93 to me.
Well first of all, the evidence that the passengers overtook the cockpit is shaky at best. From wiki:
"There is some controversy between some of the family members of the passengers and the investigative officials as to whether the passengers managed to breach the cockpit. The 9/11 Commission Report asserts that "the hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them".[21] Others claim that there is no doubt the passengers breached the cockpit.[52]"
But lets assume the passengers did in fact breach the cockpit for the sake of discussion. We're talking 38 people vs 4 here. I don't care what those men are trained in or how sharp their knives are or how many of the 38 were women. The idea of 38 overwhelming 4 should not raise any eyebrows here. This is entirely plausible especially when you take into account that the passengers were galvanized by the morbid reality that they were going to die if they did nothing. Here's an account of one of the passengers calling his wife from the plane and learning his fate if he did nothing:
"During one of Tom Burnett's calls, his wife informed him of the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were "talking about crashing this plane ... Oh my God. It's a suicide mission."[39] He ended his last call by saying, "Don't worry, we're going to do something."[39]
I assume that this information quickly permeated most if not all of the passengers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheHip41
before you respond, know that terrorist training is above the army level of training, some of them are more well trained than special ops forces.
I don't care if we're talking about 4 Bruce Lees with samurai swords. We're still talking 38 vs 4.
Countless times per year, I see upsets in sports that defy odds much greater than those passengers faced. Honestly, once those 38 people know they're gonna die, I would put them as a favorite to breach and take over that cockpit. It appears they never did, but they obviously ****ed up the hijacker's plans.
For those interested I would recommend reading the "Hijacking" and "Revolt" section of the
wikipage. Very chilling stuff.