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The Impact Of Aviation On The United States

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“You haven’t seen a tree until you have seen its shadow from the sky.” Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly a solo nonstop trans-Atlantic aircraft, spoke these words about the joys of flight in 1932. She and others, such as Orville and Wilbur Wright, Charles H. Lindbergh, and Frank Whittle, recognized early on how aviation would change our view of the world. Since these early discoveries of aviation, society has relied on flight as a primary means for safe transportation. This feeling of security was challenged on September 11, 2001, when nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners and aimed the planes at targets in the United States. These terrorists’ attacks, referred to as 9/11, created the need for improved airport and airline security and reformed the United States Government’s entire security strategy and infrastructure.
Aviation has long existed as target for criminals, mentally deranged, and more recently, terrorists. John Graham blew up United DC-6 over Colorado in 1955 with twenty-five sticks of dynamite in his suitcase. In the 1960s, hijackers would commonly take over flights and divert them to Cuba. The government responded by developing laws with tougher penalties. On November 24, 1971, D.B.Cooper had a bomb with him on the plane and passed a note to the flight attendant explaining that he would detonate the bomb if he were not given $200,000. After receiving the ransom, he forced the plane to take off again, parachuted out of the aft door,

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