I would strongly recommend this extraordinary film, it is very moving, and does not attempt to portray either the passengers, crew or ATC staff as heroes, just ordinary people facing up to the terrible reality of the situation they were in.
The authorities were powerless and impotent, but up to 9/11 I doubt any other nation (perhaps with the exception of Israel) would have had any kind of plan in place to deal with a situation like the one they were faced with.
As an annual user of AA’s Manchester-Chicago 767 service and onward AA 757’s to Orange County, whilst 9/11 never put me off flying, it has been impossible to board without thinking of the dreadful fate of those similar AA & UA aircraft.
That said, I think, and hope the events of 9/11 may have ironically all but caused the end of hi-jackings, apart from the much increased security now in place, I think passengers would now be much less likely to sit back and let others decide their fate, and unless very heavily armed, a small number of hijackers would be overwhelmed and overpowered (and probably killed) by the passengers.
The flight crew would probably do whatever was necessary to get the plane down to relative safety on the ground (even if this meant killings in the passenger cabin) rather than open up the cabin door.
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