al-Qaeda plot to crash a jet into LA tower

In today's news I read that President Bush has decided to release some details of a thwarted attack on the US after September 11, 2001. He claims that an attack by al-Qaeda was thwarted. In this attack, young southeast Asian men would take over a commercial airline by blasting open the cockpit door with explosive shoes. Then they would take over and crash the plane into a Los Angeles skyscraper.

I know that Bush is pretty proud of this accomplishment, a prevention of another September 11 style attack. But I can't help but think that he is taking more credit than he should, because this plot is simply ridiculous.

The first part of the plot, getting suicide bombers onboard with explosive shoes, is frightening enough, and could have been accomplished. I will give credit for stopping that crime.

This plot was to take place in October 2001, after Sept. 11, and before Richard Reid, the British "Shoe Bomber", was caught in his failed attempt to blow up a jet over the Atlantic in December 2001. So airlines were not checking shoes at that time.

But after that, the plot get silly.

First, blowing up a cockpit door with just enough force to allow entry, but not enough force to damage the aircraft to the point where control is lost, is a fine science. Did these terrorist practice on all sorts of cockpit doors to find the exact formula for the proper placement and composition of explosives in different environments to achieve this exacting result? No. Blowing up anything INSIDE of an aircraft is pretty foolish and most likely to cause far more serious problems than it could possibly solve. A good crowbar would be a much better tool for this task.

More than likely, they would have simply blow up the cockpit, ripped a hole in the fuselage, and crashed the aircraft then and there. They would have never had a chance to gain control to perform a kamikaze run into a building, a la, Sept. 11.

Second, even if they did manage to somehow get to the cockpit door and attempt to gain access, they would have had to murder every single passenger on the plane, including the pilots, to do this. The September 11 terrorist forever destroyed the airplane hijacking business as the world knew it.

Before Sept. 11, hijackers were given the benefit of the doubt, and were assumed that they didn't want to kill their hostages and themselves. The protocol was for the passengers to remain calm and seated, and most likely they would survive. Now, the passengers have to assume that they are going to be killed unless they act.

So anyone who hijacks an aircraft now has to go way out of their way to convince the passengers that they should not rip him to pieces on the spot. Trying to gain access past the cockpit door means all bets are off, and the passengers have no choice but to fight him to the death. God knows I would never allow a hijacker to get past me to the cockpit as long as I still had a breath in my body. I think most people feel the same way.