Pretty frank assessment by a commander-in-chief of the system he says failed. Seems to me that kind of candour is refreshing …
“…once the suspect attempted to take down Flight 253 — it's clear that passengers and crew, our homeland security systems and our aviation security took all appropriate actions. But what's also clear is this: When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred. And I consider that totally unacceptable.
The reviews I've ordered will surely tell us more. But what already is apparent is that there was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security. We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system, because our security is at stake and lives are at stake.”
Read the complete text of President Barack Obama's statement.
Why is Peter Van Loan getting a free pass for allowing a flight with a terrorist on board to pass through Canadian airspace? The Ministry of Public Safety was after all, created to deal with exactly these types of incidents.