flight attendant for United out of Boston. She knew many on the flight that hit the WTC because she normally flys either that route or another route to CA (can't remember which one right now). Anyway she was fortunate to be on the other route (LA I think) that day. After the plane she was on landed that day they discovered box cutters taped under a number of seats. No one was sure why nothing happened on that flight, it appears an attempt was planned for it as well, but the flight crew speculates that if any terrorists were on that flight they may have decided to abort their plans when they noticed over 20 of the passengers were Marines in uniform. Who knows what really happened, maybe the bad guys got stuck in traffic going to Logan and never made it, or maybe they looked around and decided their odds didn't look so good...maybe these young Marines (most likely on their way to their first duty station) helped prevent further tragedy without even realizing it. Just an interesting story I thought I'd share (and I've actually met the source ;-)).

But it seems like it never really made headlines. I guess a lot of it was inside job?

Many flights were likely set-up prior to Sept. 11, giving as many options as possible. There would have been contingency plans for "If Plane A is down for service that day, alternate Planes B, C, and D would cover the needed cross country, high fuel load routes." The now-discovered knives on several planes just indicates the B, C, and D option planes.

The new Check-in/Terminal Security isn't so much for real security (it is, in reality, quite ineffective for a real threat), but for peace-of-mind security for the traveling populace. It *may* stop a single, uncoordinated highjacking attempt, but nothing more, and how often have those happened in the past 20 years?

Tom "ass-****er" Clancy to me now.

Who instead of being ashamed of being the inspiration of the destruction of the WTC and thousands of deaths instead tried to claim credit and say his book instead probably helped out by raising awareness. Ask CNN for the tapes.

What a dick.