Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career

Attempting to crash an aircraft into a building was not an entirely new paradigm.  Despite Secretary Rice stating, “I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile”, there had been numerous prior attempts to utilize aircraft in this manner.  In addition, there had been a significant number of warnings suicide hijackings posed a serious threat.  For example, a 1994 report for the Department of Defense predicted every aspect of the 911 attack.  In 1972, hijackers of Southern Airways Flight 49 threatened to crash the airliner into Oak Ridge National Laboratory if a $10 million ransom was not paid.  The specific target was the nuclear reactor.  The hijacked airliner began a dive toward Oak Ridge, and was only pulled out at the last minute when Southern Airways agreed to pay $2 million to the hijackers. In 1974, S. Byck attempted to hijack a Delta Airlines DC-9 aircraft to crash it into the White House.  During the hijacking, Byck killed a security guard and the copil