I must tell you that I completely and totally disagree with your entire
philosophy on the insurance industry. I specifically blame the insurance
carriers who insured the World Trade Center structures for the extent of
the catastrophe that occurred.
Basically, a building that was built only 30 years ago was being insured,
but the insurance company felt no need to investigate the structural
integrity of the building. Even after a bomb was exploded in the building,
the insurance company felt no need to investigate the possibility that a
fire on an upper floor would cause the entire building to collapse.
The planes that were used on 9/11 were vehicles of destruction, no doubt.
But they did not cause the building to collapse. They just started the fire
that did. By your own analogy, just as the operators of Nuclear Power
Plants should be responsible for the security of their own buildings and
equipment, so should the operators of the World Trade Center have had
responsibility to ensure its security and safety.
But instead of investing their money in ensuring that the building was
properly secure from catastrophic damage, the insurance companies invested
in actuaries who "should have been" able to predict the likelihood of a
catastrophic terrorist event, and lawyers who could come and sue everyone
within arm's reach to protect the insurance company financially. No
investment in the client, the buildings, or the 2500 people who died. Their
job is to protect their own business...
On the other hand, you make no mention of all of the other hazardous
vehicles, for example commuter trains. Trains, like airplanes, carry an
excessive weight and useful load, travel at high speeds (albeit not quite
as high as planes). And while prior to 9/11, no commercial jet was ever
used as a missile in an attack on a civilian structure, we have already
seen multiple terrorist attacks on trains - recently in Spain using
explosives, and the nerve-gas attacks back in the 90's in Japan (I think it
was Japan).
And yet it seems that one can get on an Amtrak train that travels at 150MPH
from Boston to Washington with any number of knives, guns, and whatever
else they can carry without having to stand in line behind any XRay
machines at all..
I also disagree with your comments regarding airline approaches to
hijackers. They are self-contradictory. First you say that the pilot has no
business going into the back to solve problems. Then you inidicate that
security would be improved if the pilot could carry a gun. What would he do
with it if he was not allowed to leave the cockpit?
You claim that the "play along" approach that was used to subdue hijackers
was innappropriate based on some prior fatal accident. I'm not sure what
you are referring to, but I suspect that you are a sad victim of our media
who believes that the information they report to you is the standard, not
the exception. What you don't realize is that the events that transpire
every day are normal, not news, so they are not reported. In the meantime,
you should note that there are more hijackings every year that end in
peaceful resolution (notwithstanding dictators who execute them) than the
one that ended in the destruction of an International Landmark and murder
of 2500 people. And as seen below, many of these have happened even after
9/11...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2866595.stm
http://www.themilitant.com/2003/6716/671603.html
You claim that prohibited items are routinely carried through the security
screens, but you fail to realize that it is irrelevant because the
boxcutters that they used to take over the planes were not long enough to
be prohibited at the time. In other words, the ridiculous security systems
that have been put into place to attempt to divert the "casual" hijacker or
airplane bomber will never actually stop the organized terrorist, who will
always find a way to accomplish their goal by either bypassing or using the
system to his/her advantage. It is quite naive to believe that the X-Ray
machine at the airport is truly going to protect you from the motivated,
organized terrorist who will just bribe a $10/hr security guard or find a
technology that otherwise bypasses the X-Ray machine...
Assault rifles - now THAT'S national security! I think they should allow
assault rifles on airplanes - in fact I think they should pass them out to
anyone who wants one. Imagine what kind of terrorist would get up with a
boxcutter on a plane full of well-armed civilians!
(Michael) wrote in
m:
Michelle P wrote
What a crock of SH**! The airlines are not responsible for security,
the US Government is, Sue them. The airlines have never made the rules
either. Blame the government.
This is about the ONLY credible argument I have heard in favor of not
holding the airlines liable for the 9/11 incidents - they were
micromanaged by the FAA to the point where they could no longer
develop effective security procedures. Nevertheless, I still don't
buy it.
Airplanes are commercial equipment but are also potentially dangerous,
and they are dangerous in direct proportion to weight and useful load,
and in quadratic proportion to speed. They can cause damage by
impact, where energy of impact is half the mass multiplied by the
square of the velocity. They can also deliver explosive or incendiary
payloads, thus the useful load hazard.
It it well accepted in civil law that those who own and operate
commercial equipment that is potentially dangerous have an obligation
to take reasonable steps to secure that equipment in proportion to the
hazard posed. Drawing on my own professional experience, consider a
chemical plant. Chemical plants are dangerous, primarily to those who
work in them but also to those who just happen to be in the
neighborhood. A knowledgeable terrorist in posession of just a few
pounds of dynamite and a few blasting caps could cause explosions and
toxic chemical releases that would kill hundreds or thousands. These
things have happened before by accident.
So why are chemical plants not seen as potential terrorist targets?
Well, they certainly are. Why don't we shut them down? We need them
- they produce everything from mouthwash to gasoline, and shutting
them down would cripple the economy. So how do we handle the risk?
Well, in two ways - direct regulation and market forces (via the tort
process).
Direct regulation is OSHA (to which airliners are not subject - IMO a
bad mistake) and other regulatory bodies that set safety
standards. However, if an accident occurs and all you show is that
you did the minimum required to comply with regulation, that doesn't
protect you from civil liability. You must also show that you did
everything reasonable to prevent the accidents. I find it highly
unlikely that widespread terrorist attacks against chemical plants are
in the cards. The operators of these plant are already taking most
reasonable measures to prevent accidents, and that includes adequate
security to keep people who don't belong out of the plants. The
larger and more hazardous the plants, the greater the care taken.
Security at a chemical plant is NOT a joke - it's serious. Getting in
without proper identification and a reason for being there most likely
won't happen, and you won't be bringing much of anything with you.
These are hardened targets, and thus not at all attractive to a
terrorist.
The driving force is risk management - insurance. Some plants carry
insurance, others (generally owned by the very largest conglomerates)
are self-insured, but in either case there are professional risk
managers reviewing the operation, including security, with an eye
towards reducing the probability of an accident.
The FAA and the Airlines maintained the "play-along" posture with
regard
to our procedural response to high-jackers far beyond the time when it
was appropriate relative to the known threat. There never was
justification for a cockpit crew member of a two-person crew to leave
a
duty station to go back to the cabin, in-flight, to help sort out a
problem.
No passenger should ever have gained access to the cabin of an
airliner
while in possession of anything which could reasonably be used as a
deadly weapon. We had adequate warning of the disastrous potential
from
previous fatal incidents.
There is no doubt in my mind that reasonable steps
were NOT being taken to protect the general public. The only question
is WHY? You seem to want to pin the blame on the FAA, and if it's
really true that the airlines tried to do it the right way and the FAA
would simply not allow it (I don't dispute that this could be, but
that's not how it looks) then the liability rests strictly with the
FAA. However, to the extent the airline management was complicit with
this non-security, the blame rests there as well.
Prohibited weapons were almost routinely
carried through our so-called security screening points prior to, and
even after, 9/11, according to the Government's own tests.
Airline security was always a bad joke. That
shows bad faith - it shows that the airlines knew their commercial
equipment was NOT being secured, and were ignoring it. Who ran the
security process? Hint - the security was not made a government
function until AFTER 9/11.
Perhaps the
Insurance companies will ultimately help solve comparable future
problems and protect their investors by helping to establish realistic
standards of security for those industries in which they have
considerable exposure.
Given that this is what has happened in every other industry I can
think of, I am at a loss to explain why this has not happened in the
airline industry. That's about the only reason I am willing to
believe that government (FAA) interference might preclude effective
security.
Michael
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