Northwest Airlines terrorist attack

The Christmas day attack on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit by a passenger who ignited an incendiary device is an important reminder for all of us. If the passenger really is connected to Al Quaeda, as he claimed, it is another example of that organization's strategy to repeat it's attacks on a target until they are successful.

In 1993, Islamist terrorists lead by Ramzi Yousef detonated a bomb in the basement of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, killing six people and injuring 1,042. The attack was intended to bring down both towers, but failed. In 2001, however, the terrorists were back with a different method, crashing aircraft into the towers. As we know, this time they were successful.

On 22 December, 2001, Shoe Bomber Richard Reid attempted to ignite explosives aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. He was overpowered by passengers and crew and is now in jail.

In 2006, British authorities arrested three men accused of plotting to blow up at least seven trans-Atlantic airliners in one day over the Atlantic, by detonating liquid explosives.

This latest attempt on the Detroit-bound flight shows that Al Quaeda is still determined to bring down airliners. It also illustrates that they don't quite have the technology worked out yet, but as with the WTC bombing, they are persistent.

It also shows that increased security at airports is important as a first line of defense to stop terrorists and explosives getting onto airplanes, but as in this latest case, cannot be relied upon to prevent every single attack.

The most important lesson we can all learn from this is that once an aircraft takes off, the only people who can save themselves are the crew and the passengers. It doesn't matter how many F-16s are scrambled to escort the aircraft. Those fighter pilots cannot take out the terrorists on the aircraft, they can only shoot the plane down before it can be crashed into a target on the ground. It is vital that when a passenger starts to act in a threatening manner, such as trying to ignite a bomb, the passengers and crew act immediately and decisively to take him down with overwhelming physical force.