*How do you defend yourself against a terrorist on a plane with a knife?*

Since it is most likely that the terrorists killed crew men/crew women early on to intimidate any counter attack, most people would be peeing in their pants.

Bigger passenger has disadvantage to thinner passenger since the aisles are narrow. Bigger person is bigger target for a knife.

Many travellers are tired from traveling and not at full strength.

I have been on buses where beat downs happened and the bus passengers did not intervene.

Visable armed sky marshalls would be a deterent.
 
OK, since we're all assuming that we're leading the charge and that we're in confined close quarters, what strategies do we decide NOW to employ in order to minimize those disadvantages?

1. Make as much noise as you can? You probably can't sneak up on the terrorist from the passenger section. Several have mentioned giving a rebel yell in the hope that you will break the mob bystander mentality.

2. Attack the legs/get low on the assumption that the others behind you will attack high (untrained seem to do that most often.) This might allow more people at once to fight him, and there are obvious advantages to you attacking his balance while someone else attacks elsewhere--but are you committing suicide by attempting to bypass the blade and not controlling it? You could hope the next guys will stop the blade before it gets you, but that might be a thin hope.

3. Do you make it a priority to get past him or throw him into the seats, in order to let your "teammates" get better access? If I rush him in a narrow aisle and my friends are behind me, for instance, I tend to block the whole aisle. But if I can get past him, I have him between me and them and we have that pincer advantage. But is that going to be more difficult than simply controlling the blade and fighting to win on your own? What I see in my mind here is to "blast past" like a defensive lineman--if you go on the right side, you get as low as you can, get your arm low, and bring it up from about the waist to strike him around the shoulder/armpit. You are trying to lift that shoulder and turn his shoulder so you can get past him, while turning yours as little as possible. Stopping and turning to face the blade, though, might be a problem, assuming you get past it intact.
OTOH, if there are several terrorists in a line in the aisle this would allow you to get past the first one, leaving him for the others, and penetrate to the others.

Then there's the big question of whether I would remember any of this grand strategy when the balloon goes up.
 
Well, I guess like on the show 'Loss Cannons' you can act crazy, bable and jump around and just kick the S*@t out of them!

All I can say is, if you are really thinking about unarmed combat, I suggest you slim down, take classes, and enter some full-contact matches. May take while, one year at least, to get good enough, but I know many who are quite good fighters who can bet the stuffings out of me (and I have been in the martial arts for 20 plus years). You will also get some scars and lumps! I promise you that!

Get trained, get a bullet proof vest, cane, and a determined mindset, then stay off the airlines as much as you can.

Deaf
 
IF you have a moment or two grab something(s) to use as a weapon.

Empty hand stuff is for when all your weapons are gone or something happens to fast/close to use a weapon.

What type of attack or tactics you use should depend on your goal/mission/objective.

Are you taking them one at a time? Do you want to crash the plane?
Do you want them alive to extract intell before you go after the rest? Do you want to survive?

If your facing an opponent armed with a small blade and you can accept the fact that you will get cut then you can pretty much ignore the blade for the short term. As long as you protect the most vital areas of your body from the knife you don't have to worry about the knife stopping you.

From what I have gleaned about hand to hand combat you need to focus on either breaking a limb or landing a successful striking attack (probably more than one) against neck or head. Destroy the eyes. Or get a strangle hold or neck crank [ie break neck] applied. If you can do that despite getting cut you will have beat that particular goblin.

Most martial arts really are not very useful in a direct sense for life and death fights because they usually don't teach or have you practice any techniques that would actually end a fight quickly like you need to do in the real world against armed opponents. And the arts that do teach some useful techniques, like judo/jujitsu and others, don't teach you to protect all the real vital areas.

A knife cut (small knife) to the arm or shoulder isn't going to win a fight in and of itself. A finger strike or gouge to the eye might, and if you get both eyes then they can't see you.
 
Reality Check, Eyeball!

"Come on, eyeball, we face that threat EVERY DAY in EVERY PLACE where we have armed humans. If you really think that's a valid objection, then you're asking for an absolutely impossible level of security. Anwar Sadat and many other world leaders have been killed by their own security people over the last century, and THAT risk can only be minimized, never eliminated."

- posted by Cheapo

----------------------------
and replied by Eyeball:

yeah but the difference with this scenario is the potential to do mass harm. I mean, a plane could take out 50,000 people whereas one sheriff who lost it could only take out like 5-10 people.... that is 5000 LESS people the sheriff can't hurt.

armed security inside of airplanes is a big no no.

_____________

Well, since the only woman on death row in Nevada is one who drove her car onto a sidewalk and killed several people, I submit that the idea of using any vehicle as a ramming device is neither new nor novel, and the risk you seem so concerned about has always existed with regard to airliner pilots.

What about tanker aircraft? Now, THAT'S A FUEL BOMB!!

What about the --Texas City?-- propane explosion in the late 1940s or whenever that happened? How easily could a deranged night shift worker duplicate the Bhopal, India poison gas disaster?

Listen, I recognize certain remote risks every time I pass a gasoline tanker on the freeway.

Seems like your risk of sky pilots "losing it" or whatever has always been a risk for every military plane that ever took off with a full load of ordinance.

Your approach reminds me of abandoning antiaircraft batteries on naval ships, lest some operator "lose it", "go postal," and attack either friendly aircraft or neighboring ships. Those missiles could conceivably sink a mid-size craft holding 3,000 Marines in very short order.

I'm just not comfortable with there being only *one* armed and very visible target on the aircraft. The aircrews already hold the power of life and death in their hands every day. Giving them the means to safeguard their power is eminently reasonable.

Arm two members of the crew. Concealed. Only claim that one is armed. And no one knows who the *other* armed crew member is, not even the captain. A certain measure of security and wise redundancy of safety lies in such a stealth approach. Plus standing orders to always answer "not me" when asked if they are armed.
 
A Few Overlooked Points

-We haven't had many hijackings in the US lately because the hijackers have learned that it isn't a percentage play to hijack a plane here. This latest outbreak worked because they had different motivations than previous hijackers. For any hijackings in the foreseeable future, I would assume that the hijackers intend to turn the plane into a missile.
-As someone suggested above, once a hijacker gets into the pilot's seat, getting him out without crashing the plane is going to be difficult, if not impossible. I suspect that Flight 93 was being piloted by a hijacker, and was deliberately crashed when he realized they were on the verge of losing control of the plane to the rebelling passengers. Since the best you can do once the hijacker gets into the pilot's seat is crash the plane, it is imperative that you prevent them from getting into the cockpit. Thus, you must be prepared to act immediately, without consultation.
-If the terrorists have a bomb, then they have a way to bypass security. If they are armed with makeshift knives, then they do not have a way to bypass security. If they have makeshift knives, but claim to have a bomb, then they are almost certainly lying. And if they aren't, then the best you can do is have them detonate the bomb while the pilot is at the controls.

In short, I think the most important thing you can do in this scenario is attack before they get into the cockpit. I think how this is done is much less important... Just do it.
 
I've seen martial artists break cinder blocks with rolled up magazines. Lots of things can be improvised weapons.
 
yeah but out in the public if somebody is armed, there could be another person out there thats armed that would level of the first armed person.

the difference with an armed guard in an airplane and an armed policeman on the streets is that the armed guard in the airplane is the only armed person in the world around him... and that is extremely dangerous.
 
eyeball, ask yourself this question: What would you do if you were on that doomed plane that is headed for a suicide mission? You bet your ass you would wish their was an armed sheriff on board if you were aboard a run away plane.
 
A couple of observations

1. Several authorities have indicated that a bullet hole in the skin of a jet will not cause depressurization to the extent that someone would be "sucked" out of the jet. A much larger opening is required. Apparently, we've all been watching too much TV.

2. CHEAPO--the Texas City disaster in 1947 was actually an explosion of ammonium nitrate, not propane (a French ship was carring the fertilizer--prilled ammonium nitrate--they attempted to extinguish a fire by flooding the cargo area with steam and then closed the hatch / ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer--it provides oxygen to fires even when air is excluded).
 
parabellum: but thats not what im talking about though. im saying that many more accidents like what happened on september 11 could happen in the future because of the presense of an armed person aboard the aircraft.

and then the question would be like: "how would you feel if you were on board that plane that crashed when that armed guard took everyone hostage and crashed the plane into that one building?"
 
Several authorities have stated that a bullet size hole will depressurize the cabin. But there are special bullets now which with less penetration.

Eyeball you are clueless. Since you are so paranoid that law enforcement will go nuts and shoot everyone, you should stay at home forever. According to your insane logic, all police officers should be disarmed. Maybe you should move to England where no one is allowed guns.
 
eyeball, El Al flies thousands of flights every year. All of them have armed security. They have for decades. Have you ever heard of a problem such as you envisage on a single El Al flight? No, you have not. Do you know why you have never heard of such? Because it has never happened. When is the last time you have heard of a federal agent going berserk and killing people at random? The policies and procedures of these agencies may be subject to criticism. Some of the agents may be willing to follow very questionable orders. But the agencies are very good at weeding out madmen.

With all of the very real dangers facing all of us today, I believe we need to focus on real dangers rather than playing what ifs with a ten million to one scenario.

Personally, I rarely fly and see no need to change my habits. If I am on a plane being hijacked I will attack the closest while screaming,"Get them!" while whaling away with a cane or a small oxygen tank and I will do it at the moment of the first announcement. Being a nurse, I will have no problem getting a doctor to write me a prescription for either.

I do not believe that most Americans will sit there waiting to become a guided missle after the events of September 11. I know I will not.

Oh, the terrorists on Flight 93 did not attain their objective of turning the flight into another guided missle. The deaths of the passengers was incidental to them. They lost completely. The passengers who resisted were aware of the hijackers objective. From cell phone calls they placed, it is apparent their primary objective had become to prevent the hijackers' from destroying more innocent Americans. They obtained their objective. When the stakes are high enough, "winning" does not necessarily include personal survival. If that were so, many of the holders of the Congressional Medal of Honor would be considered losers. I don't think so. If you do, please go to one of the websites that has the citations for the Congressional Medal of Honor holders, read the citations issued posthumously, and then come back and tell me they lost. I dare you.

We are in a war, people. All of us, not just our government, and not just our military. Read the fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden and supported by thousands of others of his ilk. It does not list just the American government or the American military. It lists all Americans-the elderly, men, women, children, even babes in arms. All of us are targets and all of us must be ready. We must be ready at a moment's notice to answer the call as did Jeremy Glick, Tom Burnett, and Mark Bingham.
 
Eyeball, you are right. I can see what you are saying.

I worry about my local sherrif at the county fair jumping up with is 15 shot pistol and killing a whole bunch of people. It give me the willies to think of how the LEOs can hijack the local gas trucks, and just run one into a football game and kill us all! Just takes one LEO nut job. Or one CCW/CHL nut job. Forget all the real nut job terrorist who WANT to do this, lets look at all the people around us that theoreticly can be a nut job. Yes, lets crack down on them!

Gads, just think of the ramfications! Any armed LEO, MILITARY, or CCW/CHL carrier can just walk into a refinery and start shooting inceneraries at the fuel tanks, what a thought. Has it ever happend? Well, no. but it can! It might! Someday!

Hey, any person who can make a bomb, can just blow up a AMTRACK, or get on board with a AK. Holy Toledo.... we have to restrain all passengers by handcuffs for the duration of the journey.

Eyeball, you are right on the nose. Lets get them to ban all people from owning guns, learning martial arts, thinking for themselves. Just tell them to dump them in the river and get to work like good slaves.

We must make the country safe for terrorist. Good guys don't need guns, we have Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Jackie Chan, and all those action heros to save us. Don't you see them defeating all those bad guys with just brains and karate.

Eyeball, you have got to learn to trust someone, least no one has the power to stop a evil attack. For every chance of a LEO, or CCW carrier doing an evil deed, there are 1000 times more chance of a evil BG doing one and needing one good man to stop them. Get a grip.

Deaf
 
When the stakes are high enough, "winning" does not necessarily include personal survival.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The first passenger just throws his arms around the BGs neck and brings him to the ground, making sure to land on top. He (the passenger) may even survive this, but the BG is in a position to be stomped. No MA training required, just mindset...
 
Totally agree with just grabbing them. I'm sure that as they walk down the isle they will have their back to you as they pass.

In high school, we did a stunt where you grab someone from behind and squeeze hard. Within 20-30 seconds, they pass out. Not much they can do about it.

I've gotta put this one here in re being a real man:

No matter the time or place, I will "save the day" or die trying. But, I won't whimper or cry before or after. My brother is 5'2" tall. He was in a convenience store when a guy robbed it and was slapping the girl around. The guy was 6'2" tall and armed with a large knife. My brother jumped on him and beat the crap out of him. My brother suffered a huge slash across his abdomen and all his guts were showing. When the cops showed up, my brother was still on top of him smashing his face in. I'm so proud of my brother...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top