Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
observe a disturbance or attack. We reject this as a generally accepted
theory. While in some instances such behavior may be appropriate, today
the people likely to confront you on a plane don't need you alive to bar-
gain with. In fact, your presence is actually incidental to them. To sit by
and do nothing only makes it easier for them to end your life.
If you must fight, these rules must be burned into your mind:
Maintain the will to live.
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Do not give up.
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Fight despite your fear or injuries.
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Initiate immediate violent, effective action to terminate threats to
your life, your safety, or that of others.
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We are aware that this seems to be an almost impossible task, but be
assured that fighting for one's life is well within everyone's ability. The
attackers have a plan. Dealing with determined resistance is not some-
thing they are counting on. Their plan is to attack violently, perhaps
brutally murdering passengers before your eyes to cow everyone into
obedience. Having to fight dozens of enraged passengers is not in their
realm of expectation. It may very well be your only way to survive. There
are many instances to observe just how ordinary citizens rose up to meet
a threat to their lives and the lives of their fellows. On December 7, 1993,
a gunman opened fire on passengers aboard a Long Island Rail Road
Train near the Merillon Avenue station in Nassau County, New York.
Three heroic passengers physically attacked the gunman, Colin Ferguson,
while he was reloading his 9 mm pistol and ended the rampage, which left
6 dead and 17 wounded. On December 22, 2001, an airline passenger
named Richard Reid, a 28-year-old British citizen of British and Jamaican
ancestry, attempted to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in his shoe.
Passengers and flight attendants overpowered Reid, who has since been
linked to radical Muslim terrorist organizations, when they observed him
trying to touch a lit match to his sneakers during the Paris-to-Miami flight.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents later testified at Reid's bail
hearing that the explosive in his shoe was of sufficient quantity and
destructive power to have blown a hole in the plane's fuselage. Incidents
like these as well as dozens of others are leading aviation security experts
to encourage passengers to take action during a hijacking or other crisis.
As a general rule, the most dangerous times of a hijacking occur
during the initial takeover and during any assault on the aircraft to end
the event. Obviously, this was not true of the hijackings of September 11.
