Reply #17: YES.

[SheilaT]

It was so completely obvious that they (whoever "they" were) had done their best. It involved the hijacking of four airplanes and that was it. There was nothing more.

In the ten years since there has been NOTHING of substance against this country.

In further explication, I am a former airline employee. I worked as a ticket agent at DCA (National Airport in Washington, DC) starting in January, 1969. That was before any security of any kind. We used to let people go out onto the ramp areas to photograph airplanes, if they wished. There used to be observation decks at most airports, where you could watch the airplanes, often pretty close up.

The other thing to understand is how very quickly news of crashes spread through the airline industry. I cannot begin to tell you how very fast we knew of crashes or other incidents. I swear, I sometimes knew of plane crashes before the wreckage had come to a complete halt. It was almost as if airline employees were psychic, and as if after a crash we all lifted our heads and said, "Yes, flight such-and-thus has just crashed." I can tell you about specific crashes, but that's not the point.

On September 11, I'd turned on National Public Radio right before the top of the hour, only to hear Bob Edwards say, "Reports are sketchy, but it appears that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center." I immediately thought, This is a visual story, and turned on TV. About twenty minutes later when I saw the second plane crash into the other tower, my first thought was to call former co-workers because I knew that they would know exactly what flights had crashed and what other flights might be missing.

As it turned out, I could not get ahold of my friends that day, but when I did talk to them, they said, "Oh, yes, we knew by then exactly which flights had been hijacked."

I repeat: In the airline industry, when something goes bad, the employees know about it immediately.

In fact, while watching the coverage that morning, as all the various on-air persons for the many networks were struggling to figure out what had happened, all I could think of was: Don't ANY of you have contacts with an airline ticket agent somewhere?

And yes, I knew very quickly that whoever had done this thing (and I knew I did not know who had done it) had done everything, had used up all his resources, and this was the end.

Sometimes those close to the ground really do have a better understanding of things.

On a separate but related note, I've been very frustrated over the years that those who are supposed to understand these things cannot distinguish between rumor and verifiable information. As a woman who was connected to the rumor network of my children's school, I always paid attention to the source. Some are reliable, others not so much.