Hacker News

We had hundreds of hijackings in the 20th century, culminating in 9/11, the first time an airplane was used as a weapon of mass destruction. Since 9/11, following the subsequent addition of TSA and stronger protocols, we haven't had any more hijackings.

25 years of success would suggest that TSA, or at least the enhanced security protocols that included TSA, combined with better focused intelligence, has worked to eliminate the threat of hijacking, more or less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

The 9/11 hijackers were able to take over aircraft with ceramic knives and shit because they were playing by new rules - the passengers expected to be able to survive if they just cooperated because thats how past hijackings had worked.

If anyone tries to take over a plane with a fucking knife post 9/11 they're going to get the shit beaten out of them. That is by far the primary reason for the decline in hijackings - passengers no longer have any reasonable expectation of survival through cooperation.

The only way to overwhelm all the passengers is with guns and simple pre-9/11 metal detectors were sufficient to detect those.