this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Thanks for sharing. That’s really interesting. Also, what a way to absolutely do great on your first day. Realize there’s a massive aerospace emergency, ground all flights without approval, because approval could mean the cost of more lives. Dude deserves some praise for what he did.
Looking back at history, we're there other flights as attack vectors that a ground stop prevented from executing their plan? Or was a ground stop, albeit the correct course of action, pointless in preventing anything because the plan had already been executed in full?
Even if there weren't any planned attacks at the moment, the preventive and protective actions are usually done regardless of the temporary costs.
Without going much political, I can say that move was one of the most critical ones, maybe right after preventing nuclear warfare, because I don't want to think how much worse the American retaliation in the last 20 years would be if there was even one more kamikaze plane, especially considering that we now measure warcrimes in magnitudes of 9/11.
As far as I can recall, no further attacks were prevented. I disagree with calling it "pointless", because it was the right decision given what was known at the time.