Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 12:58 pm  

Cronus wrote:

..
As abhorrent as the thought is, if a hijacked aircraft is heading towards to Olympic area, it's better to destroy it in the air than allow it to crash, possibly into a packed stadium.

It really isn't.

First, the authorities are highly unlikely to know a plane has been hijacked. They may only know it is off course, and not responding to radio. If it's course is towards the general area of the Olympic village, are you seriously saying that that is enough to justify shooting it out of the sky?

Of course, the nearer the plane gets to the Olympic village, the more fears would mount but once it became pretty certain that's where it was heading, then the plane would be over heavily populated areas and if shot down would not cause light damage, but carnage.

So you shoot it down anyway. How do you justify that? You received no threat; you had no comms from the plane; you cannot even adduce any positive evidence that it had been hijacked. You have no certainty that you even saved any lives, by sacrificing the hundreds or thousands you chose to certainly kill.

What if then some terrorist organisation publishes a statement that they only intended to overfly the Stadium, to make a point, and had no intention of crashing it?

What if, even if terrorists had announced that the packed Olympic Stadium was the target; but then afterwards said we only did this to prove that your government would sacrifice its own citizens to protect commercial interests.

No, whatever the circumstances, it is in no way "better" to shoot a 747 out of the sky on the off chance that this may lead to a smaller number of overall casualties. It would never be done.

Cronus wrote:

..The whole scenario is extremely unlikely, but better to have air-to-air missiles and not need them, than to need them and not have them.

I'd agree with that, but don't see what the addition of ground-to-air missiles (which is what I thought we were discussing) adds, unless to cater for some outlandish risk that all our fighter jets might be incapacitated somehow, which does seem absurd.

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:00 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

I'm sure that Mintball's fears of a 747 falling in flaming pieces onto her house will be soothed by the idea that they will only be light pieces and that damage should be limited to a mere rattle on her roof tiles.

It is an abhorrent thought but an aircraft heading for a relatively open site like the Olympic Park, and presumably they'll be heading for a stadium and not the accomodation blocks (unless they can pick out which rooms the Isreali's have), might actually cause less damage than bringing it down in a thousand flaming pieces all over Central London ?

One would assume any (intelligent) hijackers would time their attack for when the stadium is in use. Not hard to do - buy tickets for a flight coming in on the evening of Sunday 5th August, for example.

Ground damage would be limited - that is, severe in small areas but certainly not widespread. An aircraft simply isn't big enough to cause massive widespread damage. Look at AA 587 which crashed in Queens - the entire aircraft caused damage only over a very small area. If the aircraft disintegrated damage would be more widespread but unless every piece landed on someone, casualties wouldn't be heavy. There are a lot of rooftops and open spaces before seats start landing on people's heads.

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:00 pm  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... bacle.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... bacle.html

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:17 pm  

Cronus wrote:

One would assume any (intelligent) hijackers would time their attack for when the stadium is in use. Not hard to do - buy tickets for a flight coming in on the evening of Sunday 5th August, for example.

Ground damage would be limited - that is, severe in small areas but certainly not widespread. An aircraft simply isn't big enough to cause massive widespread damage. Look at AA 587 which crashed in Queens - the entire aircraft caused damage only over a very small area. If the aircraft disintegrated damage would be more widespread but unless every piece landed on someone, casualties wouldn't be heavy. There are a lot of rooftops and open spaces before seats start landing on people's heads.

OK you have convinced me. Any passenger jet straying in that direction needs to be shot down, just in case.

What convinced me was the realisation that if this shoot-to-kill policy is adopted, then you wouldn't even need to clear the stadium, the events inside could continue uninterrupted and speccies leaving the stadium may never even come across the carnage, apart from maybe noticing some smoke in the distance.

Good plan.

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:21 pm  

Why are we assuming that the stadium would be the target for any terrorism attack? There are plenty of other viable targets that would carry equally, if not more weight, should they be attacked e.g. Parliament. In fact, if we have a whip round maybe we can influence their choices...

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:22 pm  

McClennan wrote:

Why are we assuming that the stadium would be the target for any terrorism attack? There are plenty of other viable targets that would carry equally, if not more weight, should they be attacked e.g. Parliament. In fact, if we have a whip round maybe we can influence their choices...

I think that's the danger. Security over-concentrated on The Olympic site with other prime targets more vulnerable.

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:37 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: It really isn't. First, the authorities are highly unlikely to know a plane has been hijacked. They may only know it is off course, and not responding to radio. If it's course is towards the general area of the Olympic village, are you seriously saying that that is enough to justify shooting it out of the sky? Of course, the nearer the plane gets to the Olympic village, the more fears would mount but once it became pretty certain that's where it was heading, then the plane would be over heavily populated areas and if shot down would not cause light damage, but carnage. So you shoot it down anyway. How do you justify that? You received no threat; you had no comms from the plane; you cannot even adduce any positive evidence that it had been hijacked. You have no certainty that you even saved any lives, by sacrificing the hundreds or thousands you chose to certainly kill. What if then some terrorist organisation publishes a statement that they only intended to overfly the Stadium, to make a point, and had no intention of crashing it? What if, even if terrorists had announced that the packed Olympic Stadium was the target; but then afterwards said we only did this to prove that your government would sacrifice its own citizens to protect commercial interests. No, whatever the circumstances, it is in no way "better" to shoot a 747 out of the sky on the off chance that this may lead to a smaller number of overall casualties. It would never be done. You're assuming a 'shoot-first, ask later' policy is in place. It isn't. I'm talking about circumstances where a hijack has been positively identified whether via communication or interception and that aircraft is heading towards the Olympic Park. If an aircraft is screaming across restricted airspace into London at 500mph, flying erratically and not responding to communication, there's fair chance of a threat. If it enters restricted airspace at normal speeds but deviates from course slightly and isn't communicating clearly then there's scope for an intercept and a visual check. Aircraft lose radio contact from time to time and I can guarantee you it's taken incredibly seriously every time, Olympics or no Olympics. This Intercept Advice explains in layman's terms the procedures should an aircraft lose radio contact or enter restricted airspace and no threat is immediately apparent: "As a last resort, if an aircraft fails to comply with these procedures, or is intercepted and fails to comply with the directions of the military aircraft, it may be considered to be a threat to security, which may result in the use of lethal force." You have a lot of 'what ifs' listed there. The authorities are not going sit back and say "that hijacked aircraft is fine, they said they'd just fly over to make a statement". You cannot be certain of their intentions but you aren't going to take chances. If someone presents such a threat they have to be taken seriously. Those are the hard decisions that have to be made and a 'wait and see' policy would be absurd. Put simply, it comes down to a numbers game and 60,000 in the stadium and possibly hundreds of thousands packed into the Olympic area take priority. If, god forbid, we end up with a hijacked 747 over London there's no easy answer, but the restrictions are in place, every aviation company is aware of them and any breach of those restrictions will be treated seriously. Of course, an attack could happen at any time but clearly London is such high profile for the next few weeks it's an alluring target and measures have to be taken accordingly. Again, an airliner crashing into populated areas would cause damage and casualties, yes, but not the massively widespread carnage you envisage. It's a machine, not a thermonuclear device. Even El Al 1862 which crashed into an apartment block in Amsterdam only resulted in 51 deaths and limited damage, and this is what AA587 did to Queens with damage contained to a very small area. However, superimpose that damage over a heavily crowded area or a packed stadium and the results are very different. I'd agree with that, but don't see what the addition of ground-to-air missiles (which is what I thought we were discussing) adds, unless to cater for some outlandish risk that all our fighter jets might be incapacitated somehow, which does seem absurd. Given the relatively small restricted area, high speeds at play, and the very short reaction time, it's a last-ditch option.

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: It really isn't. First, the authorities are highly unlikely to know a plane has been hijacked. They may only know it is off course, and not responding to radio. If it's course is towards the general area of the Olympic village, are you seriously saying that that is enough to justify shooting it out of the sky? Of course, the nearer the plane gets to the Olympic village, the more fears would mount but once it became pretty certain that's where it was heading, then the plane would be over heavily populated areas and if shot down would not cause light damage, but carnage. So you shoot it down anyway. How do you justify that? You received no threat; you had no comms from the plane; you cannot even adduce any positive evidence that it had been hijacked. You have no certainty that you even saved any lives, by sacrificing the hundreds or thousands you chose to certainly kill. What if then some terrorist organisation publishes a statement that they only intended to overfly the Stadium, to make a point, and had no intention of crashing it? What if, even if terrorists had announced that the packed Olympic Stadium was the target; but then afterwards said we only did this to prove that your government would sacrifice its own citizens to protect commercial interests. No, whatever the circumstances, it is in no way "better" to shoot a 747 out of the sky on the off chance that this may lead to a smaller number of overall casualties. It would never be done. You're assuming a 'shoot-first, ask later' policy is in place. It isn't. I'm talking about circumstances where a hijack has been positively identified whether via communication or interception and that aircraft is heading towards the Olympic Park. If an aircraft is screaming across restricted airspace into London at 500mph, flying erratically and not responding to communication, there's fair chance of a threat. If it enters restricted airspace at normal speeds but deviates from course slightly and isn't communicating clearly then there's scope for an intercept and a visual check. Aircraft lose radio contact from time to time and I can guarantee you it's taken incredibly seriously every time, Olympics or no Olympics. This Intercept Advice explains in layman's terms the procedures should an aircraft lose radio contact or enter restricted airspace and no threat is immediately apparent: "As a last resort, if an aircraft fails to comply with these procedures, or is intercepted and fails to comply with the directions of the military aircraft, it may be considered to be a threat to security, which may result in the use of lethal force." You have a lot of 'what ifs' listed there. The authorities are not going sit back and say "that hijacked aircraft is fine, they said they'd just fly over to make a statement". You cannot be certain of their intentions but you aren't going to take chances. If someone presents such a threat they have to be taken seriously. Those are the hard decisions that have to be made and a 'wait and see' policy would be absurd. Put simply, it comes down to a numbers game and 60,000 in the stadium and possibly hundreds of thousands packed into the Olympic area take priority. If, god forbid, we end up with a hijacked 747 over London there's no easy answer, but the restrictions are in place, every aviation company is aware of them and any breach of those restrictions will be treated seriously. Of course, an attack could happen at any time but clearly London is such high profile for the next few weeks it's an alluring target and measures have to be taken accordingly. Again, an airliner crashing into populated areas would cause damage and casualties, yes, but not the massively widespread carnage you envisage. It's a machine, not a thermonuclear device. Even El Al 1862 which crashed into an apartment block in Amsterdam only resulted in 51 deaths and limited damage, and this is what AA587 did to Queens with damage contained to a very small area. However, superimpose that damage over a heavily crowded area or a packed stadium and the results are very different. I'd agree with that, but don't see what the addition of ground-to-air missiles (which is what I thought we were discussing) adds, unless to cater for some outlandish risk that all our fighter jets might be incapacitated somehow, which does seem absurd. Given the relatively small restricted area, high speeds at play, and the very short reaction time, it's a last-ditch option.

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:46 pm  

Cronus wrote:

Even El Al 1862 which crashed into an apartment block in Amsterdam only resulted in 51 deaths and limited damage,

I remember reading an article in The Observer shortly after that happened. The concensus was that if something similar happened on the approach to Heathrow, the death toll would increase exponentially

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 2:31 pm  

Chris28 wrote:

On Olympic security, can anyone explain why surface to air missiles on flats round the Olympic park are actually needed?

I would have thought that any air threat, real, perceived or whatever, would be dealt with before it gets within coo-ee of London. If any plane changes course without air traffic control authority, or fails to respond, the RAF will be scrambled, surely?

The wind. The wind direction dictates that planes landing at Heathrow usually have to approach either from the east or west - which in practical terms means that most flights from Europe fly over central London. With so many planes flying so close to the Olympic stadium there wouldn't be time to scramble an egg let alone the RAF if one suddenly veered off it's flight path.
Having said that, I'm not sure how firing more explosive into the air in central London is going to limit the loss of life when the wreckage crashes into the ground.

Re: Olympic Army : Fri Jul 13, 2012 2:35 pm  

DHM wrote:

The wind. The wind direction dictates that planes landing at Heathrow usually have to approach either from the east or west - which in practical terms means that most flights from Europe fly over central London. With so many planes flying so close to the Olympic stadium there wouldn't be time to scramble an egg let alone the RAF if one suddenly veered off it's flight path.
Having said that, I'm not sure how firing more explosive into the air in central London is going to limit the loss of life when the wreckage crashes into the ground.

All good points made in response to my original query. Ta everyone. Good job I'm not in charge eh?