Flight Alloy, there are mechanisms to alert ground agencies on some operators aircraft of an on board situation. Clearly any hijacker of note would know about 7500. To describe them would be stupid on an open forum. Might be an idea not to be so patronising......

What was the F-16 doing in all that? "Scrambling fighters" looks good on the news but seriously, what would it do if it was real? Shoot down a passenger jet over a European capital? I believe the incessant scaremongering goes WAY too far in Europe.

While the possible hijack scenario was still live, that was exactly the right thing to do.

Under some circumstances, that could be the least worst option.

Such as? What possible "circumstance" could warrant killing hundreds of people over stupid hysteria? History shows that hijackers just want to go from A to B and always let the hostages go. Exceptions are so rare and far between that I can't even think of one. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, 9-11, one instance in 112 years of aviation.)

I think you have just answered your own question.

Shooting down the 2 that went into the towers would have saved 2500 people directly.

Coincidence that the F-16 was in the air (according to a fact checking podcast from Nu). In Oct-Dec, the low light conditions in the early evening are used to practice/refresh low light flying, use of night vision goggles....

UltraFan,

If Air France 8969 had not been stopped in Marseille the hijackers were going to crash it into the centre of Paris.

Rather like 9/11 don't you think?

Introduced some humour in my post, following a trend, but the post was taken down even though mine was the funniest. I will leave out the humor & say, simply, again, whatever the trigger , the response was quick & firm. Well done AMS making Schipol look damn safe to me. 9-11 lessons are being learned.

Would it? How about the people onboard? How about the people on the ground it would fall on? How about the resulting fire on the ground? How many would that kill?

No, I don't think so. You say like it's a fact. The "Paris bombing plot" was just a figment of French military imagination and US-UK journalists' love for mass hysteria.

Yes, that's the words they need for the next election. Keep saying that.

The problem with your way of thinking is that trigger happy fighters lead by scared and war-crazed commanders WILL lead to tragedy. And it's not just an assumption. Just remember the A300 Americans shot down in the Persian Gulf. Just like in Amsterdam, nobody cared to think for one second. Just "send the fighters" and "start a war". Gosh, I hate to admit it but Macron is right - NATO is brain-dead.

UltraFan. What the h*ll has this thread got to do with NATO?

They were dead either way.
​​​​​Probably less than 2500 using UAL93 as a reference.
Never said that shooting down every hijacked airplane should be the first solution, but in the case of 9/11 over 90% of the casualties were on the ground.

Tried to reply this morning, so far not published yet. The F-16 taking to the sky was a coincidence, not related to the possible hijack.
F-16 was starting low light exercise, use of night vision goggles.

Shooting down a civilian airliner will never be a NATO task. It is a national responsibility. In some countries the use of lethal force is a political decision, in others it has been delegated to the military commanders.

It was posted. I saw it above. Thanks for the information. I sure hope the Netherlands is a smart country.

I muss say that I'm having a hard time believing this one. Am I correct that the plane was still at the gate and not boarded?