@jonnythan Said
Before 9/11, no one on a flight would have imagined that the terrorists intended from the outset to crash the plane.
It's different now. Now, if your plane is taken over, the expectation is that they absolutely intend to kill themselves and everyone else on board. Passengers will no question use force to defend themselves.
Yep jonnythan is spot on, sadly, about flight 93. The passengers of flight 93 spoke to family members who told them what was going on. They wouldn't have fought otherwise. The guys who tried to do so on that flight were truely heroic. It's impossible to know how many lives they saved, because that plane did not hit its intended target.
In Brisbane about 6 years ago there was a nutcase on a flight who brought out a wooden stake and waved it about just after take-off. As I remember the passengers had jumped on top of the guy and disarmed him before the flight crew even know what was going on lol. So if anyone was hapless enough to try this s*** on a plane now they'd be quite foolish I think.
Would I fight in a situation like this? Yes I have no doubt I would, that most people would. I have been in a robbery/hold-up type situation and I was so s***-scared it was hard to think straight, but I was able to process that the most important thing was that I lived, not what they wanted to steal. Self-preservation for me, kicked in immediately.
I've read that self-preservation is the basic cause of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Self preservation is so strong as an instinct in us that even 10 years after an event, some people are still so desperate to live & stay alive that they fear not just real but imagined danger too.