It's About Time

A newly released report from the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that Northwest Flight 327, chronicled in Annie Jacobsen's gripping "Terror in the Skies" articles for Women's Wall Street beginning in 2004, was indeed a terrorist "dry run."

The article includes air marshals' accounts of the behavior of the terrorists on the plane. Small wonder that many passengers were in tears and feared for their lives.

I believe I've read all Jacobsen's articles on her frightening flight experience and subsequent research -- she later wrote a book -- and she continually hit dead ends attempting to get more information out of the government. In fact I seem to recall that attempts were made in some quarters to demean her reaction to the incident.

It seemed that the government was either in denial or was covering up to prevent general panic, when the public would have been better served by having the reality of the terrorists plotting in our midst confirmed. Or maybe the government was embarrassed they had allowed all 13 of the men to walk free after the incident?

It is disturbing that it has taken three years for this confirmation to finally be published.

A comment at Captain's Quarters: "I guess they're [DHS] too busy slamming people who want to see our borders enforced to actually worry about little things like airline security."

Sadly, that reaction sounds about right to me.

Patterico's Pontifications links to other articles on this flight if you are interested in background reading.

More from Captain's Quarters.