What could a fighter jet do if a plane goes rogue in a terrorism situation. Surely they can’t push the plane in a certain direction to prevent them causing harm the plane is too big and that’s a recipe for disaster all round. Shooting the plane down has its own complications especially if flying over populated area.
What could they actually do in a code red situation?
In: 2414
Fighter jets have lots of neat tools besides guns/missiles:
-Huge engines – helpful for arriving on the scene very quickly. It’s hard to overstate how much faster fighter jets are than civilian aircraft
-Powerful radar – works nicely with the big engines. Even if ATC does has a clear idea if where the target of interest is, you can speed everything up if you can see directly where it is yourself instead of having ATC vector you on to the airplane
-Nice big panoramic windscreens – Very useful for getting a good look at things, seeing if the pilot is slumped over, etc
-Thoroughly trained pilots – Military pilots are trained in things like formation flying, aerobatic maneuvers, which makes flying in close quarters with another aircraft much safer
To put it differently, just because they sent out fighter jets doesn’t necessarily mean they are jumping to the worst case scenario. It’s usually something simpler like a pilot not paying attention to Temporary Flight Restrictions, not tuned into the right frequency (or radio has busted), pilot straight up getting lost, a medical issue, and so on. Simply getting someone next to the plane to “wake up” the pilot and get their attention is extremely useful! Fighter jets are pretty good at that.
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