Last week President Obama admitted there had been a deep failure of “national intelligence” in the planned terrorist attack of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit, which was carrying nearly 300 people.
The 23 year old Nigerian man was allowed to pass security and gain admittance to the flight in spite of all the warnings that were apparently missed, even though he was in a database of possible terrorists. Even his father had provided to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria a month earlier, warning the U.S that his son was an extremist in Yemen’s Al-Quaida.
If a few passengers on the flight hadn’t noticed the smoke and light from the fire that had started in his pants from chemicals he had injected into a package of explosives concealed in his underwear, it would have been a disaster. Because of the few men who acted immediately by overcoming him and bringing attention to what was happening, the tragedy of the whole plane exploding and killing all those people would have happened. It was a miracle as none of the crew seemed to be aware of the impending disaster.
I’d say those men were heroes, and should get some mention to that fact. The President has made it clear airport security will be much tighter from now on, and all of the security agencies have the same information to prevent something like this happening again.
Helen L. Price
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