Originally Posted by rickair7777

It would be really tough. Safe to assume that NORAD is now sitting up straight and paying attention until this aircraft is positively located.

9/11 worked because they were already inside the ADIZ, they were legit commercial flights to start with, there was mass confusion, and no precedent or standing orders allowing airliner shootdown. Nonetheless a flight of F-15's almost caught up with the plane that hit the second tower.

They would have to fly high for most of the flight for fuel burn, but could conceivably go to the deck to avoid ATC radar for the last bit. Much tougher for an inbound to avoid military radar though...especially since every cruiser and destroyer in the navy has Aegis, and they can all easily switch that on at sea or in port.

If one knew exactly where there might be thin spots in NORAD coverage you might be able to slip in under the wire but how would the bad guys know if or where any hypothetical holes exist?

But the baddies may not know what they don't know, so I'm not saying they wouldn't try. Their odds would be better if the world was still under the assumption that the airplane crashed.

To me this is starting to smell like hijacking, possibly with the intent of hiding the plane for later WMD duty, followed by a flight 91 scenario splashing the plane in the IO.