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20 years since them slags smashed into the twin towers...

Started by Butchers Blind, September 10, 2021, 12:32:14 AM

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JaDanketies

I remember hearing a lot of concern about 'terrorist attacks on Big Ben' or 'on the Statue of Liberty' and all I can say is, fine. Smash into the Washington Monument, too, and the Lincoln Memorial, and Nelson's Column. You'd hardly kill anyone. Anyone who would see a smashed Big Ben as a dagger through their heart is ridiculous imo. Would quite happily smash up a big clock if it meant a mass murderer merely took themselves out and not a bunch of innocents.

I did feel pretty sickened by ISIS destroying all those ancient UNESCO world heritage sites though. I don't know how many innocent lives Machu Picchu is worth

katzenjammer

Quote from: JamesTC on September 16, 2021, 11:12:17 AM
If you were told you'd get a load of virgins in heaven for cleaning your house then I bet you'd get to it sharpish.

Welcome to heaven! And here is your first virgin

JamesTC


Blumf

Quote from: katzenjammer on September 16, 2021, 11:20:31 AM
Welcome to heaven! And here is your first virgin


Twenty years ago, a bunch of mad lads killed themselves in the hope of getting 72 virgins each. Today, we have a surfeit of 20 year old incels.

Coincidence?

Replies From View

Quote from: Buelligan on September 16, 2021, 10:36:49 AM
Heheh.  But it's true that targets are important.  Think about the UK - would you focus a primary strike on the City, Lloyds, Canary Wharf?  Would that take you further than wiping out the House of Commons (feat. Winston's statue), Downing Street or Buckingham Palace and maybe Mi6 HQ or the MOD?

Got to be childhood homes I reckon

dissolute ocelot

Attacking Washington would probably be harder because the White House and maybe Congress has (and had) a lot of sophisticated defence stuff, surface to air missiles, anti-missile systems, etc. And they wouldn't think twice about shooting down an airliner heading there. Which is why it's a pity the 4th plane crashed in a field.

It should also be obvious that tall buildings are easier to hit. Otherwise you have to aim just right. They smashed up the Pentagon a bit but didn't come close to destroying it. Other symbolic targets like Fort Knox, Rushmore, Niagara Falls, Hoover Dam, would be hard to take out with a plane. The Empire State Building is probably a better symbol to our eyes, but the Islamists definitely had a thing about the World Trade Centre. Maybe it's better known in the Middle East and not so much in the UK. Also the approach to the WTC is easier, while the Empire State Building is in midtown.

For British targets (in 2001, so pre-Shard) you'd maybe go for
1. Big Ben/Houses of Parliament (which was incidentally targetted by a bomb in the British film Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry scheduled for release in autumn 2001)
2. Buckingham Palace
3. Windsor Castle
4. Whatever out of Lloyds Building, Gherkin, Cheesegrater, etc, was newest
5. St Paul's
6. Canary Wharf
7. Statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
8. Battersea Power Station (big Pink Floyd fans)
9. Any cathedral in some place you went for your holidays and it rained.
10. Blackpool Tower

I've not road tested these in Microsoft Flight Simulator so some are probably easier than others

idunnosomename

Hamleys
Alton Towers
Coronation Street set
Rolf Harris (still national treasure)
The farm in the middle of the M62
Cromer

Replies From View

Quote from: Mister Six on September 16, 2021, 10:40:50 AM
Americans aren't Brits and don't have the same attachments. But I reckon Camry Wharf would still trump MOD or MI6 in the public's perception even though it's out in the arse end of the Docklands and not easily visible from on foot across the city (unlike the WTC in NYC) and not iconic (the only popular culture appearance I can think of is in the comic book The Invisibles).

I don't think anyone in London gives a shit about Canary Wharf.  Outside of London?  Definitely not.  Try to visualise Canary Wharf now and draw a picture of it.  I'd be willing to bet most people wouldn't recognise Canary Wharf even if you showed them a photo of it.  Many people wouldn't assume it was in London.


For London a 9/11 equivalent would be tourist attractions I think.  Tower Bridge, London Tower, St Paul's.  If it has to be a business tower, the shard and the gherkin would be iconic.  Not Canary Wharf.

Beagle 2

The thing is, you have this image of state of the art missile defense systems and a trigger happy rapid response team, but if you listen to the ATC conversations that went on during the attacks, what you actually have is lots of people trying to firstly work out what's going on, where the planes are heading, who should be contacted, people along the chain being unsure what authority they have to do what or who they have to find and a whole lot of time where nothing is really happening. I'm sure it's been tightened significantly but even now, if somebody who knew how to fly a plane could get into a cockpit, I think there would be very little anybody could do about it in time to mitigate a disaster.

Luckily they had the idea to lock the cockpit door. Alright, it didn't work out, Germanwings wise, but they'll crack it eventually.

The Ombudsman

Quote from: Blumf on September 16, 2021, 11:27:58 AM
Twenty years ago, a bunch of mad lads killed themselves in the hope of getting 72 virgins each. Today, we have a surfeit of 20 year old incels.

Coincidence?

Out of interest, do you think they would pace themselves or just go all out squandering the virgins?

Bit tasteless either way.

JamesTC

I'm sure God can magic up some more virgins for them.

Zetetic

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on September 16, 2021, 11:55:23 AM
Other symbolic targets like ... Niagara Falls, Hoover Dam, would be hard to take out with a plane.
Not really clear what either of those symbolise in this context. The concept of a US-Canadian border? Flood control?

Zetetic

Quote from: Beagle 2 on September 16, 2021, 12:18:07 PM
I'm sure it's been tightened significantly but even now, if somebody who knew how to fly a plane could get into a cockpit, I think there would be very little anybody could do about it in time to mitigate a disaster.
The biggest difference is that prior to 9/11, you'd overwhelmingly assume that hijackers were looking to land the plane (and indeed this is what the hijackers indicated on 9/11) and act accordingly.

katzenjammer

The company I worked for back then gave us advice on how to react during a plane hijacking which was basically STFU and keep a low profile until it's all over.

Blumf

Quote from: katzenjammer on September 16, 2021, 12:51:39 PM
The company I worked for back then gave us advice on how to react during a plane hijacking which was basically STFU and keep a low profile until it's all over.

Cheaper than voluntary redundancies.

JesusAndYourBush

It's all because the buildings fell down (which Bin Laden couldn't have predicted unless he was an expert at architecture and structural engineering and even then you'd not know for sure.)
Imagine how differently the event would have been viewed if the fires had been put out before the heat caused sufficient structural damage to make the buildings fall.  The people on the upper floors would have survived, and the building would have been repaired (assuming it was still structurally sound and not a write-off).  They'd have repaired the external structure first because that's what everyone sees and they'd have wanted to fix that as quick as possible (internally would have maybe taken longer).  A few hundred people would have died rather than 3 thousand, which would still be bad, but the whole event would be viewed in a different light to how it actually turned out.


Quote from: Cuellar on September 16, 2021, 10:43:38 AM
BIG BEN

In the film version it'd be accompanied by a wobbly out of tune comedy BONGGGgGgGgGGGGG!!! sound as the plane hits.


Quote from: dissolute ocelot on September 16, 2021, 11:55:23 AM
Attacking Washington would probably be harder because the White House and maybe Congress has (and had) a lot of sophisticated defence stuff, surface to air missiles, anti-missile systems, etc. And they wouldn't think twice about shooting down an airliner heading there.

But so did the Pentagon.


QuoteFor British targets (in 2001, so pre-Shard) you'd maybe go for...

Angel of The North please, it's a horrible looking thing.

buzby

Quote from: Replies From View on September 16, 2021, 12:13:13 PM
I don't think anyone in London gives a shit about Canary Wharf.  Outside of London?  Definitely not.  Try to visualise Canary Wharf now and draw a picture of it.  I'd be willing to bet most people wouldn't recognise Canary Wharf even if you showed them a photo of it.  Many people wouldn't assume it was in London.


For London a 9/11 equivalent would be tourist attractions I think.  Tower Bridge, London Tower, St Paul's.  If it has to be a business tower, the shard and the gherkin would be iconic.  Not Canary Wharf.
Post Office Tower
Natwest Tower/Tower 42 - the previous holder of tallest tower block in London, right in the middle of the City and had been damaged in the Bishopsgate IRA bomb in 1993
Centre Point - right in the middle of the West End, and was the subject of a (fictional) plane crash in the 1978 Richard Burton film The Medusa Touch


One thing about trying to fly into Canary Wharf or any of the towers in the east end of the city is that they are in the London City Airport approach zone. Even back then, an unscheduled, unresponsive airliner flying into the approach zone of an airport would have raised the alarm. The RAF's southern QRA base is at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire though (which at the time was equipped with Tornado F3 interceptors), so it's unlikely thay would have been able to reach London in time to do anything.

Part of the reason the Pentagon wasn't that badly damaged is because the building was undergoing a reburbishment at the time to harden it against attacks. Wedge 1, which is where the plane hit, was the first to have the work completed. All the outer windows were replaced with blast resistant panes that weigh 300lbs each, additional vertical steel beams were added to the inside of the outer wall to strengthen it, and kevlar blast panels were installed behind the outer walls between the windows. After the attack they basically went back and started on Wedge 1 again.

touchingcloth

Quote from: buzby on September 16, 2021, 02:06:32 PM
Post Office Tower
Natwest Tower/Tower 42 - the previous holder of tallest tower block in London, right in the middle of the City and had been damaged in the Bishopsgate IRA bomb in 1993
Centre Point - right in the middle of the West End, and was the subject of a (fictional) plane crash in the 1978 Richard Burton film The Medusa Touch


One thing about trying to fly into Canary Wharf or any of the towers in the east end of the city is that they are in the London City Airport approach zone. Even back then, an unscheduled, unresponsive airliner flying into the approach zone of an airport would have raised the alarm. The RAF's southern QRA base is at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire though (which at the time was equipped with Tornado F3 interceptors), so it's unlikely thay would have been able to reach London in time to do anything.

Part of the reason the Pentagon wasn't that badly damaged is because the building was undergoing a reburbishment at the time to harden it against attacks. Wedge 1, which is where the plane hit, was the first to have the work completed. All the outer windows were replaced with blast resistant panes that weigh 300lbs each, additional vertical steel beams were added to the inside of the outer wall to strengthen it, and kevlar blast panels were installed behind the outer walls between the windows. After the attack they basically went back and started on Wedge 1 again.

I think the British Public would have been most affected by a hypothetical Al Qaeda plane attack if the target had been Cpt Tom.

katzenjammer

Quote from: Blumf on September 16, 2021, 12:56:34 PM
Cheaper than voluntary redundancies.

You didn't see how rubbish the redundancy packages were

sovietrussia

Not on a 9/11 Truther tip, but legitimate question for which I'm sure there are reasonable answers. 

Given the the planes striking the WTC are the subject of a lot of video footage (in particular, the second one that can be viewed from multiple angles/sources) why is it that pretty much none exists for the one that hit the Pentagon (apart from a couple of 1980s-standard CCTV stills in which you can't make out the aircraft)?  Just wondered that in light of the fact that the Pentagon was hit over 30 minutes after the second tower strike (the point when people realised what was unfolding) that no footage exists of the plane evening flying across Washington DC at a low altitude.  I would have thought a lot of people would have been looking at the skies.

Quote

There were loads of exercises and wargames going on at the same time if I remember. I think some of the fighters meant to be intercepting around New York were off on manoeuvres elsewhere at the time.

It was one of things the 9/11 truthers were focused on in the years following, or saw as evidence of suspicious activity in the build up to September 11th.

EDIT: misread the post above, obv

buzby

Quote from: sovietrussia on September 16, 2021, 02:45:31 PM
Not on a 9/11 Truther tip, but legitimate question for which I'm sure there are reasonable answers. 

Given the the planes striking the WTC are the subject of a lot of video footage (in particular, the second one that can be viewed from multiple angles/sources) why is it that pretty much none exists for the one that hit the Pentagon (apart from a couple of 1980s-standard CCTV stills in which you can't make out the aircraft)?  Just wondered that in light of the fact that the Pentagon was hit over 30 minutes after the second tower strike (the point when people realised what was unfolding) that no footage exists of the plane evening flying across Washington DC at a low altitude.  I would have thought a lot of people would have been looking at the skies.
From the previous page:
Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on September 16, 2021, 02:13:47 AM
It's also less impressive because we can't watch videos of the plane hitting.  CCTV was seized from nearby businesses and when they finally released something it was 3 crappy frames that showed so little that they only served to give fuel to conspiracy theorists.
Also, the Pentagon is the other side of I-395 from Ronald Reagan Washington airport, so low flying planes are not that unusual in the area. The Capitol and Washington city are on the west side of the Potomac, the pentagon is on the east side, and the plane came in from the east over Arlington. Fflight AA77 took off from Dulles which is even further east from Washington and then did a U-turn over Ohio, was eventually tracked on it's return by the Dulles Approach controllers, passed them and was picked up by the Reagan approach controllers, who asked a USAF ANG Hercules to identify it shortly before it hit the building.

katzenjammer

Quote from: sovietrussia on September 16, 2021, 02:45:31 PM
Given the the planes striking the WTC are the subject of a lot of video footage (in particular, the second one that can be viewed from multiple angles/sources)

Is there more than one video of the first plane hitting? I thought there was just that one from the French documentary team.  There was loads of the second just because by then everyone was pointing cameras at the first one

Quote
why is it that pretty much none exists for the one that hit the Pentagon (apart from a couple of 1980s-standard CCTV stills in which you can't make out the aircraft)?  Just wondered that in light of the fact that the Pentagon was hit over 30 minutes after the second tower strike (the point when people realised what was unfolding) that no footage exists of the plane evening flying across Washington DC at a low altitude.  I would have thought a lot of people would have been looking at the skies.

Just some thoughts

  • There may well be more CCTV but why would they release it? To stop internet rumours? I'm not sure they would care too much about that
  • The pentagon isn't in the middle of the city, it's sandwiched in between a lot of motorways. I doubt many people were wondering around there, certainly nothing like in Manhattan
  • Mobiles didn't have cameras in those days, let alone do video
  • The crash itself would be over in a second
  • The pentagon is massive, but not tall, and (funnily enough) has five sides, you probably wouldn't see the crash unless you were near the side that was hit.

darby o chill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot

QuoteThe Bojinka plot was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack planned by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States with the goal of killing approximately 4,000 passengers and shutting down air travel around the world; and crash a plane into the headquarters of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Fairfax County, Virginia.

QuoteAnother plot that was considered would have involved the hijacking of more airplanes. The World Trade Center (New York City, New York), The Pentagon (Arlington, Virginia), the United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.), the White House (Washington, D.C.), the Sears Tower (Chicago, Illinois), and the U.S. Bank Tower (Los Angeles, California), would have been the likely targets. In his confession to Filipino investigators, prior to the foiling of Operation Bojinka, Abdul Hakim Murad said that this part of the plot was dropped since the Manila cell could not recruit enough people to implement other hijackings. This plot would eventually be the base plot for the September 11 attacks.

sovietrussia

The above responses are just the type of quality content that I was hoping for. I shall be passing it off as my own insight in pub conversation into the future. Thanks all.

popcorn

#565
Quote from: dissolute ocelot on September 16, 2021, 11:55:23 AM
Attacking Washington would probably be harder because the White House and maybe Congress has (and had) a lot of sophisticated defence stuff, surface to air missiles, anti-missile systems, etc. And they wouldn't think twice about shooting down an airliner heading there.

According to Wikipedia, when it became clear the US was under attack, Cheney gave the order to shoot down United 93 (but of course it crashed into a field anyway).

So Cheney managed to get out of the whole 9/11 debacle with no blood on his hands.

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: popcorn on September 16, 2021, 04:25:28 PM
According to Wikipedia, when it became clear the US was under attack, Cheney gave the order to shoot down United 93 (but of course it crashed into a field anyway).

One of the documentaries showed some radio communication where one person was asking about the flight and got the response "It's down", then they replied "It landed?" and got the response "No, it's down", and then there was quite a long period of time where they didn't actually know if one of their own planes had shot it down or not.

Cuellar

If they'd just shot them down before they took off all of this could easily have been avoided

Mister Six

#568
Quote from: Replies From View on September 16, 2021, 12:13:13 PM
I don't think anyone in London gives a shit about Canary Wharf.  Outside of London?  Definitely not.  Try to visualise Canary Wharf now and draw a picture of it.  I'd be willing to bet most people wouldn't recognise Canary Wharf even if you showed them a photo of it.  Many people wouldn't assume it was in London.

Try to visualise the MOD or MI6 buildings. Those were the options given, and the comparison I made. I agree that Canary Wharf is itself a shit target, per other reasons I outlined above (location, visibility etc).

lankyguy95

Quote from: katzenjammer on September 16, 2021, 03:44:39 PM
Is there more than one video of the first plane hitting? I thought there was just that one from the French documentary team.
There is actually two but the other one is much less well known and in most copies the plane is too difficult to see. There's this enhanced version where I guess the colour's been played around with and you can actually see it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YupMxNmSFEI