Word: flightly
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...hopscotched across the middle section of seats and threw himself on top of the bomber, shouting at his fellow passengers to pass water bottles and blankets his way. Other passengers screamed; some ran to other cabins. "I don't want to die! I want out!" yelled one. Two flight attendants, alarmed by the smell of smoke, rushed past the dozens of passengers out of their seats to find fire extinguishers. They doused Abdulmutallab and Schuringa as well as the burning seat, the floor, the walls and the surrounding area. Abdulmutallab, his pants torched, naked from waist to knees, was hustled...
...story of Flight 253 exposed a raft of glaring flaws in the global aviation-security network. Almost all are well known to aviation experts. Yet what President Obama eventually called a "systemic failure" caught his Administration flat-footed for the first 72 hours after the attack, as officials initially tried to play down the weaknesses of the web Abdulmutallab slipped through. More than eight years after 9/11 and 21 years after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in midair over Scotland, the attempted Christmas bombing revealed that the array of protective measures put in place around the world still...
...American soil - and may be the first time that such an assault was directed from Yemen. That's a reminder that the struggle against jihadism is not confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where U.S. forces are now concentrated. In its provenance and near catastrophic outcome, the story of Flight 253 is a reminder that the war on terrorism is far from over - and may be spreading. To prevent another attack, here are four lessons the U.S. and its allies will need to learn...
...been far more aggressive about exploiting their weaknesses. Part of the problem is our chronically reactive approach to airline security: in military terms, the authorities are always fighting the last war. Ever since Richard Reid tried to ignite his shoes, loaded with the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), on a flight from Paris to Miami in 2001, U.S. travelers have had to remove their footwear for scanning before boarding. After a plot to blow up several airliners over the Atlantic with small amounts of liquid explosives was uncovered in London in 2006, travelers were barred from carrying containers with more than...
...security measures remain inconsistent - and inconsistently applied. Abdulmutallab tried to get around the barriers by sewing an 80-g packet of PETN into the crotch of his underpants, betting that if he boarded in Lagos and transferred in Amsterdam, he would make his way undetected onto the Detroit-bound flight. That worked: during his layover, Abdulmutallab most likely encountered nothing more than ID checks and a metal detector at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. He was betting that any pat-down - unlikely as that was - would not come close to the tiny bomb in the crotch of his trousers. Fellow passenger...