[quote=BigDaddyTX]It's like 9/11. Out of all the planes, only on one of them did the people on board decide to take out their aggressors. [quote]

The difference in reaction is largely explained by what the passengers were aware of.

On the other two planes passengers were told that the intent of the hijackers, armed with a bomb, was to fly to a neutral location and to negotiate their release in exchange for political prisoners. This is what hijackers did up to this time and it was what the passengers and fight crews expected and trained for.

The proper response in that case, if it were true, was to remain calm and don't do anything that might cause the hijackers to blow up the plane. Everyone stays cool and in a few hours, a few days at the outside, most of the passengers would be rescued or released and they would go home safe.

It was the understanding that the hijackers had a bomb but didn't want to use it and the expectation that most people could survive that kept people from attacking the hijackers.

On flight 93 things were different. There was a delay in takeoff and they were running behind the other three flights. The world watch stunned as the other two flights flew into the WTC towers and the pentagon was hit. The account of those flights got back to the passengers on flight 93 and they realized that the hijackers weren't intending to land and negotiate. That the plane itself was going to be used as a missile. That their only hope was taking control of the plane from the hijackers and landing it on their own. That if they failed to land it, at the very least, they could stop it being used as a weapon.

Their actions were primarily a last ditch effort to save themselves. Failing that to ruin the hijackers day by causing their mission to fail.

The difference was that the people on flight 93 knew what the intentions of the hijackers were. If the passengers knew this on the other three flight there is every expectation that the passengers would have reacted differently.

People can only react to the situation as they understand it. The passengers on flight 93 are made to seem overly heroic and the passengers on the other two flights exceedingly cowardly if it is assumed that all knew the intentions of the hijackers. By all reports the passengers on the first three flight either never knew what the hijackers intended or that it only became clear in the last moments.

Now that people know that the planes themselves can be used as weapons the calculus has shifted. A would-be hijacker with a gun had better have brought a lot of ammunition. Six shots isn't going to get it. Shoot everyone on board and there is a good chance better than half will live if they get medical attention. If the plane flies into a building everyone dies. No exceptions.

Which is why passengers are much less passive than they once were. Act like your causing serious trouble now and the good people are going to be coming at you from all directions and six at a time.