They depended more on the passive American mindset, intimidation and fear than anything else.

You can make a lethal weapon out of a pen, a belt buckle, a large paper clip, a letter opener, your hands, legs, finger nails, etc. but they wouldn’t have been successful if the majority of the male passengers would have physically apprehended them as the known facts of the crash in Pittsburgh illustrates, the guys on that flight knowing what had happened to the WTC thwarted another possible disaster.

It wasn’t the passengers fault for failure to act , this type of attack had never been done before so I’m sure everyone thought that a suicide mission wasn’t in the works. Without the government warning the public that this type of attack was possible no one realized what was going on and what the government’s advise was previously to 9-11 was that passengers on hijacked planes stay clam and not confront the hijackers.

What doomed the WTC and Pentagon flights was that the individuals on the flights had a passive attitude toward the terrorist, no one went after them because they were following the protocol set by the government.

I bet this type of attack will NEVER happen again so-called box-cutters or not. If someone tries it they’ll get their ass kicked and restrained in a bad way. I know if I’m on a flight and someone act’s up and threatens the passengers I’m going to subject them to a headlock from hell and pound them in the head until they’re unconscious, box cutter, knife or not.