Following the attacks , the U.S formed the Transportation Security Administration ( TSA ) to handle airport screening at U.S airports . Government agencies around the world tightened their airport security , procedures and intelligence gathering . Until the September 11 attacks , there had never been incident whereby aircraft were used as a weapon of mass destruction . The 9/11 Commission report stated that it was always assumed that a " hijacking would take the traditional form " , therefore , airline crews never had a contingency plan for a suicide-hijacking . As Patrick Smith , an airline pilot , summarizes : " One of the big ironies here is the success of the 2001 attacks had nothing to do with airport security in the first place . It was a failure of national security . What the men actually exploited was a weakness in our mind-set – a set of presumptions based on decades-long track record of hijackings . In years past , a hijacking meant a diversion , with hostage negotiations and standoffs . The only weapon that mattered was the intangible one : the element of surprise . " Throughout the mid-2000s , hijackings still occurred but there were much fewer incidents and casualties . The number of incidents had been declining , even before the September 11 attacks . One notable incident in 2006 was the hijacking of Turkish Airlines Flight 1476 , flying from Tirana to Istanbul , which was seized by a man named Hakan Ekinci . The aircraft , with 107 passengers and 6 crew , made distress calls to air traffic control and the plane was escorted by military aircraft before landing safely at Brindisi , Italy . In 2007 , several incidents occurred in the Middle East and Northern Africa , one of which men claimed to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda . Towards the end of the decade , AeroMexico experienced its first terror incident when Flight 576 was hijacked by a man demanding to speak with President Calderón
Turkish Airlines Flight 1476
Turkish Airlines Flight 1476
Aircraft hijacking