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Yes, it certainly would have. However, sitting back and stating that the situation turned out about as well it could is nothing more than Monday morning quarterbacking. We got lucky. We had a guy steal an aircraft, and fly around a major metropolitan area stating the end result would have him dead. Suicide... along with how many others? I'm not sure it gets more "mental health crazy" than that. And no one knew how this would turn out until he was a smoking hole at 2047L. Was anyone confident at 2015L that he wasn't going to bury this airliner into the city? I don't know who gives the order to shoot down, or if the ROE allows the pilots to make that call. And I'm not arguing it's a painful call to make. But have we not determined the triggers that will result in an engagement/shootdown 17 years after 9/11? Has this not been rehearsed time and time again? If this DID meet the triggers, then I'd like to know why a shootdown was not executed. And if this hijacking DIDN'T meet the criteria, then I'd like to hear that along with an explanation as to why. Instead, we seemed paralyzed by our fear of Jim Acosta and the news media asking questions post-shootdown. Had this guy ended his life by plowing into Seattle's Columbia Center with a pair armed Eagles watching with their hands tied, this would be a very different day in America. Again. One more thing to ponder: had this guy had an Arabic accent, and had he been transmitting "Allah akbar!" on the radio, would that have changed the outcome? Or would that simply bring more allegations of racial profiling in America by MSNBC? There is a lot that is going to have to be discussed and acted on within the Air Defense leadership corps and the gov't officials that make these decisions.

I disagree. We didn't get lucky, our process worked. We knew the situation, the Eagle pilots and ATC fed up to date information to everyone involved, and the decision was made to NOT shoot this aircraft down based on the threat it posed. Had the threat assessment changed, then the decision to shoot it down would have changed.

(...not an attempted barrel roll....) 🙂

We had F-15s ready to shoot it down, it wasn't required. You're upset?

Yeah, you missed it. But it's the internet, so no worries. I'm against govt-run healthcare. One reason is because in order to have it, those choices need to be made. People who want govt healthcare never want to talk about those choices. My grandma should not be supported by the govt. They are paying to fight an unwinnable battle at the expense of other programs. If people want to spend their own money to do so, great. All for it. QOL is not QOL. If you can't see the difference between a sick child and a sick old person, I can't help you. Denying the concept of differential worth between humans is one of my least favorite aspects of the progressive movement. Promised? By who? If you promised to make it to my birthday party, but then the power went out in your part of the country for multiple days, and the only way to make it to my party was to leave your wife and child at home alone and unable to fend for themselves, would you still go? We can argue all day about what is and isn't right, and what promises the government should or should not honor. But at the end of the day my political philosophies boil down to two very simple premises. 1) We don't sacrifice our children's future for today. Taking a loan out is okay, but not when you know that you will be worse off at the end of the loan then you were at the beginning. 2) Never ignore human nature. People will always choose their family over a principal. You see this everywhere. Rich liberals who decry school choice, but send their kids to the most expensive private schools. Calls for renewable energy, from the same people who demand no wind turbines be built that obstruct the view from their porch. Old conservatives who talk about the unsustainable levels of handouts from our government, as they drive to their govt funded Medicare appointments. The ultimate goal of the progressive, socialist, liberal, whatever you want to call it, movement is the creation of a global community, and that will never, ever succeed. Even if it wasn't an impossible goal, people will always work harder for their family and their immediate community. Working harder means producing more. Producing more means more overall wealth. More overall wealth means a better world for everyone. Does it seem like a coincidence to anyone that the greatest, fastest improvements in the overall condition of humans on this planet, to include the very poorest amongst us, have occurred during the last century of unbridled capitalism in America? And the parallel socialist experiments have all, every single one, resulted in unspeakable horrors and millions of dead? Free healthcare in Britain isn't helping the starving kids in India. The incredible fruits of the profit-motive are. I'm not against universal healthcare because I don't think it's fair, or because I pity the rich doctors, or because Hillary likes it. I'm against it because a capitalist system is the best chance that my grandchildren won't know what cancer is. If I have to die at 86 instead of 92 from kidney failure to achieve that, so be it.

Buddy Spike, It's a very subtle inside joke which I don't believe you're in on.

These annoyances can be avoided by simply wearing normal workout clothes. They don't know if youre mil or contractor.

Yep, IMHO that would fall under the category of "Suicide by NORAD" and most likely it would be justified/legal (example; see suicide by cop).

I agree with this. VASAviation came out amazingly quick with the audio combo, and the clips are different then what was playing on Fox News. He flew out to the water, stayed there, said he didn't want to hurt people, and when he joked about it, ATC clarified that he was joking. He seems more like the "One of these days I'm going to take these things for a joy ride YOLO." I think the gravity of the situation hit him in the middle of it. The F-15s were there, if he displayed any kind of hostile intent (and botching a barrel roll over water isn't hostile intent), he would have been splashed quickly.

It's another nail in the coffin for single pilot or single remote pilot ops, that's for sure.

I would call that something akin to the famous "barrel dive"....or a bad split S, hehe

We’re still planning to sell these bastards the F-35? We should get out of Incirlik and work our damndest to get them removed from NATO. That prick leading their country is nothing but an Islamofascist. If we let them touch an F-35, they’ll have Russia and China closely examining it in short order.

This is a god damn waste of money for no reason. Make the shoes wear blues and let us keep our bags.

Allow me to break it down. From the 1980s to about the mid 2000s... Army aviators wore a green flight suit. Air Force aviators wore a green flight suit. Soldiers wore the woodland camouflage BDUs. Airmen wore the woodland camouflage BDUs. ....and everything was ok. Then we went through a shit storm of uniform changes and ended up with the disasters that were the ABU, ACU and I’ll even throw the Navy blue shipwreck in for good measure. Now, starting on 1 Oct 2018 Army Aviators wear A2CUs. Air Force aviators wear either green flight suits or A2CUs. Soldiers will wear OCPs. Airmen will wear OCPs. ....and everything will be OK.

They helped chew through the bulkheads. Both parties are broken. What they really want is power and status. That's why Democrats supported an obvious liar and apparent criminal who would keep the status quo over Bernie, and why Republicans would squander away the best legislative opportunity imaginable because of some worthless drama. Remember, these are the people who molest kids, cheat on their wives, don't pay taxes, use campaign funds for bribing pregnant mistresses (while the wife dies of cancer), solicit gay sex in airports while fighting gay marriage, expose classified material to avoid FOIA, use inside knowledge of future legislation to game the stock market, sext 15 year olds AFTER getting caught, lie about terrorist attacks, secretly support racist spiritual leaders, use methamphetamines, interns then cast them aside, think islands could tip over, need I go on? Trump is in NO WAY worse than these people, both sides. The only difference is the way he talks/tweets. And the most amazing part is that it was "dumb America" that recognized it, while the smarter, successful people (like say, military officers) somehow convinced themselves he was an anomalous threat. If you think Trump is bad, great. He is. But if you think he's somehow worse than the alternatives, you're ignoring some pretty egregious evidence.

There is a far greater than 0% chance that the guy maniacally laughing about crashing 50,000+ lbs of metal and Jet-A decides to turn towards the major metro area what, 3 nm miles away and go out in a bigger bang of glory. Then what? The hostile aircraft is orbiting over the water, ******* do something! What’s next? “Yeah the bears were over the lower 48, but their bomb bay doors weren’t open yet”? Hostile aircraft flying over water, shoot it down, end of story. If you can’t shoot down a stolen, erratically flown aircraft within 2 mins of killing thousands of civilians then save tax payer money and cancel the entire homeland defense mission! What a joke.