this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
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Kinda wild, I vividly remember getting on a plane to Disney with my grandparents as a child (Pre 9/11). My grandpa had a swiss army knife on him when we went through security. I asked him how he was able to get that through, and he said it's a small knife; nothing to worry about. It's legal as long as it's smaller than my palm. I said what if someone brought a knife like that and stabbed the pilot. He laughed it off and said I watch too much TV. Then 9/11 happened and guess how they did it? How did 8 year old me have more sense than whoever was running airports in those days?
Pre-9/11 security in American airports was wild to me. There had been a load of plane hijackings in Europe before my time so it was always fairly locked down but I distinctly remember San Diego airport you could basically walk in off the street and nearly be at the plane when people were disembarking in the late 90s.
Yeah we had a handful of hijackings in the US too.
We didn't care until brown people did it.
It had much less to do with the attackers race, and much more to do with the fact that prior to 9/11, aircraft hijackings were primarily done for ransom, not to use the plane as a weapon for a mass casualty event.
Yeah, before that it was uncommon enough and the stakes were so low that it was probably just cheaper to comp everyone involved and call it the cost of doing business.