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RFT 533: Aircraft As Missiles

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Attempting to crash an aircraft into a building was not an entirely new paradigm. Despite Secretary Rice stating, “I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile” (Brush, 2002, para. 24), there had been numerous prior attempts to utilize aircraft in this manner (CNN, 2001). In addition, there had been a significant number of warnings suicide hijackings posed a serious threat. In 1972, hijackers of Southern Airways Flight 49 threatened to crash the airliner into Oak Ridge National Laboratory if a $10 million ransom was not paid (CNN, 2001). Copilot Johnson reported, “The demands at Knoxville were that if we didn't have the money by 1:00 that we'd crash into the nuclear reactor there” (CNN Transcripts, 2001, para. 151). The hijacked airliner was placed in a dive toward Oak Ridge, and was only pulled out of the dive at the last minute when Southern Airways agreed to pay $2 million to the hijackers (Allison, 2004). In 1974, S. Byck attempted to hijack a Delta Airlin