Someones is in trouble :P

[AeroJim]

iflyfsx wrote:
Yes, they had jets on the ground. What good would that have done if the airplane had been hijacked?

What were they waiting for? They don't have to shoot the plane down, but they do have to get up there so they *can* do something about it, if necessary.

The unnecessary maneuvers were performed after they had contacted the airplane, when it was already overdue. i.e., if the plane had been hijacked,
there would have been no time or chance to ask them to do all those maneuvers, because they could have already hit something.

Too slow. Too late.

Standby means the jets were fired up and ready to go, considering they were what, maybe 100-150 nm from Madison AT most, more like 100ish, they could
be there within minutes. The unnecessary maneuvers were performed after contact had been re-established and the pilots claimed to be the original
pilots. It made perfect sense for the maneuvers to be performed.

Also, the plane simply continued on its' heading at the same altitude straight for 78 minutes, an EXTREMELY long time in real world aviation for a
commercial liner. I understand why you would say it was too slow and too late but the US gov't seems to have a good control on these situations now
and this was really well done on everyone's part. I think you're being overcritical.