> BTR1701
>
> Well, it wasn't unimaginable because Tom Clancy imagined it in his book DEBT
> OF HONOR, which was published well before 9-11. Only difference it was Japs
> that flew the plane into the Capitol, not the al-Qaedas.
Fuck BTR1701 for beating me to it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor
Debt of Honor is a techno-thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and released on August 17, 1994.
"However, an embittered Japan Air Lines pilot, driven mad by the deaths of his son and brother
during the conflict, flies his Boeing 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol during a special joint
session of Congress. The president, as well as nearly the entire Congress, the Supreme Court,
and many other members of the federal government, are all killed in the attack."
In later years, the novel was noted for its similarity to the circumstances surrounding United
Airlines Flight 93, especially regarding its climax, where an embittered Japanese pilot crashes
his 747 on a joint session of Congress in the Capitol. While researching for the novel's ending,
Clancy consulted an Air Force officer and described his reaction: "I ran this idea past him and
all of a sudden this guy's eyeballing me rather closely and I said, 'Come on General, I know
you must have looked at this before, you've got to have a plan for it.' And the guy goes, 'Mr.
Clancy, to the best of my knowledge, if we had a plan to deal with this, it would be secret,
I wouldn't be able to talk to you about it, but to the best of my knowledge we've never looked
at this possibility before.'"[5]
In April 1995, United States senator Sam Nunn outlined a scenario similar to the novel's ending,
in which terrorists attack the Capitol on the night of a State of the Union address by crashing
a radio-controlled airplane filled with chemical weapons into it. Nunn concluded that the scenario
is "not far-fetched" and that the required technology is readily available.[6] However, the 9/11
Commission Report revealed that national security officials did not consider the possibility:
“[Counterterror official] Richard Clarke told us that he was concerned about the danger posed
by aircraft in the context of protecting the Atlanta Olympics of 1996, the White House complex,
and the 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. But he attributed his awareness more to Tom Clancy novels
than to warnings from the intelligence community.”[7]
In the aftermath of the attacks, Clancy was called into CNN and commented on the similarity
between a plane crash depicted in the novel and the crash of United Flight 93. CNN anchor
Judy Woodruff later remarked: "People in our newsroom have been saying today that what
is happening is like right out of a Tom Clancy novel."[8]