Some in the media and politicians would have you believe that flying is no longer safe and you should shun cheap airplane tickets as well as cheap vacation packages that including flying until such time as the head of Homeland Security is replaced along with top managers at TSA (Transportation Security Administration). Others say that we should not over react and no matter what we do we cannot expect to stop every terrorists attack from being attempted.
There are specific lessons we should learn from the failed take down of the Northwest flight inbound to Detroit that can help us better deal with future terrorists plots:
The biggest mistake made in this case is that after the CIA and our embassy had been warned by the father about his son, someone should have immediately checked to see if the son had a visa to enter the US.
If, as was the case here, a visa had been issued, we should have taken the steps to ensure that the son was unable to enter the US without additional extensive security checks (including, but not limited to, an evasive pat down check and a full body scan if available) and reconsideration if his visa should be revoked.
Look for certain behavior, particularly for travel being initiated from specific countries, the type of ticket purchased (i.e. one way), the way the ticket is purchased (i.e. cash), and whether the passenger checks any bags, in trying to identify individuals that should be subjected to serious additional security checks.
Terrorists win when we stop taking advantage of cheap fares out of fear.