One might think that "Mayor Bloomberg's underling" might have offered a an opinion that flying an airliner and F-16 at near rooftop level over NYC might not be a prudent and crowd-pleasing action. Given the history.

Apparently the "underling" only answers the phone and takes messages. Apparently not very effectively.

Oh well, if this is as bad as it gets we can all laugh. On the positive side the NYC emergency call center got a workout. Good practice. An unscheduled practice run. Helps keep everyone on their toes.

There, fixed it.

I don't care where you are. Jumbos flying low spook most people these days unless they are an approach. With fighter escort, no matter where, it is going to make people nervous.

I wouldn't be surprised if the big guy knew about this all along and is doing a serious case of CYA. How could anyone be dumb enough to think this is a good idea is beyond me...

If that had been for real- pray for the poor sod in the F-14.
The only way to guarantee stopping the airliner is ramming. At full afterburner.

Question is: If your the pilot of the F-14 would you choose to eject just before impact?

Of course not. You stay with the plane until the mission is achieved or you are unable to complete the mission. Them's the rules.

Fanatical muslims aren't the only ones willing to die for a cause. There are many I am sure that would gladly put foot to a$$ for our country.

When I looked at the footage it was apparent that the F-14 was too close for a missile shot (arming distance) and cannon fire wouldn't deliver enough stopping power fast enough.

So what I was getting at was: Would you choose to live with knowing that you have just killed something like 200 people?

And you have no realistic chance of a pilot obeying an order to ram. That would be tantamount to an order to commit suicide.

He might choose to be that heroic, but no one could realistically blame him for refusing. This is not Nazi Germany after all.

Having said that, hard hit pilots on both sides in WW2 rammed. But they knew that their wounds were mortal anyway.

Just want to say one thing - What F-14? The ONLY folks flying F-14s any more is Iran

It was an F-16

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An armed F-16 should have no problem at all shooting down an airliner as long as they get there early enough. A single missile might not do it but several are pretty much a sure thing and any pilot worth his salt can hit it with 20mm fire. Airliners just aren't that maneuverable and they aren't designed to take damage. Even a controlled destruction of the engines with gunfire isn't out of the question. Those engines are huge and just one round would do it.

Airforce-one has much more chance of surviving damage, mostly through system redundancy, safeing and countermeasures to make it more difficult for a missile to lock on, but it can't fly without engines.

But any such action has to be undertaken long before the airliner is over a city. Once over a major city the benefits of shooting an airliner down largely disappear. The exception being if there is some singular high-value target.

Even in that case your not going to ram the airliner. Two airplanes falling randomly into a city is not any better than just one.

No, it's not suicide if you are saving lives for a greater good. It's sacrifice. It has a purpose. You might be surprised to find out how many of our fine military men and women are willing to give their lives for their country. God bless them all.

Thats actually a very utilitarian philosophy which if applied on a society wide scale would have very interesting consequeces. I'm just bringing up the point that when you're talking about something as large and complex as a country, moral absolutes and questions of sacrifice for the greater good are inherently complex issues.