I have seen no discussion of the wisdom of the decision to ban air traffic over the U.S. for a protracted period following the attacks of 9/11. At first sight it seems sensible. No aircraft in the air, no aircraft making suicide attacks. On the other hand, it was very quickly recognized that three of the flights (not the one out of Dulles to the Pentagon) were way off course before they hit the targets. Presumably air to ground communication was taken to be sufficient assurance that when practically all aircraft were off course, finding the nearest airport, none of them was being hijacked. The Dulles exception may be the key to the decision, although it would seem as if tightened security, which was in fact assumed to make the resumption of flights permissible after September 12, might have been implemented earlier. The slow decision to resume flights was somewhat analogous to the widespread public decision not to fly at all. These thoughts came to me when I was out walking, and recalling the silence of 9/12. Was UAL flight 93 on time, and this the only (slight) miscalculation of the terrorists? What to do, what to do? Gerry http://home.columbus.rr.com/gfoley http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/pollock/263/egypt/egypt.html