Arun, the second plane hit only 18 minutes after the first one. But still, the question might be asked whether anyone, particularly in an air control tower, monitored a flight that was obviously off course and then reported the suspicious location.
It has been reported that the terrorists were able to subdue the passengers and flight personnel with knives. Knives today are sometimes made entirely of ceramics, which would not be detected in metal detectors. Those who crashed the planes had to know how to fly and could have been trained routinely in programs available in numerous countries. Of course, a well organized, well planned series of incidents takes training, commitment, and money. By examining the manifests, it should not be too difficult to identify the prime suspects.
As far as how all this might affect telecommunications, there will be a massive demand to replace facilities lost in Manhattan, and I believe, a pronounced shift to wireless, which requires less initial capital investment than wired facilities. Until now, the fastest growing markets for wireless were precisely those with poor quality or limited availability of wired services. I'm looking forward to a great increase in the use of wireless for both voice and data as a response to terrorism. I'm also looking for wireless devices that can build on the security inherent in CDMA in order to prevent unauthorized monitoring of wireless signals.
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