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Excerpts From 101 Ways to Foil a Terrorist

The Manual
  • #34.
    1. Have everyone on the plane make turbans out of the pillowcases, kneel on the floor and pretend to pray to Allah, but facing West rather than East.
    2. The confused hijackers will fly the plane in the exact opposite direction of their intended target.
    3. Dispatch the hijackers at your leisure, while they circle Oklahoma looking for the Sears Tower.
  • #35.

    (Requires two cell phones, air-phones, or combination thereof.)

    1. From the back of the plane, call the phone in the front of the plane.
    2. Have front phone handed to head hijacker, saying it's an urgent call for him.
    3. On rear phone, claim to be his neighbor, Ahmed Bandushi.
    4. Tell hijacker that he left the stove on, and his anthrax is burning.

    Note: Do not explain to terrorist that attempting to cook anthrax will accomplish nothing more than contaminating his kitchenware, which will in turn only exacerbate the usual ill effects of his monthly terrorist-cell potluck sheep's-head barbeque dinner.

  • #36.
    1. Tell hijacker that you've already phoned twelve women who swear they'll attend his funeral, unveiled.
  • #37.
    1. Explain to hijackers that the word "jihad" was miscopied from the ancient texts. The original word was actually "jihat," meaning "return to your caves immediately, to be gloriously buried alive by the infidels' bombs."
  • #38.
    1. All flights are directed to carry, stowed in the overhead compartments, near the lavatories, a number of gasoline-soaked American flags in sealed containers, with separate baggy for cigarette lighter.
    2. Upon being hijacked, flight attendants are directed to:
      1. Remove flags and lighters from containers (taking care while opening the overhead compartments, as some items may have shifted during flight).
      2. Wave flags at hijackers (attendants lacking technique are directed to study tapes of the better Spanish toreadors).
      3. Throw one flag into each lavatory, and carefully position cigarette lighter in easily locatable position next to sink.
    3. When hijackers rush into the lavatories, close and lock the doors behind them.
    4. Distribute complimentary headphones to passengers. Recommend the light jazz on Channel 7.
    5. Stand by lavatory doors with fire extinguishers, while waiting for smoke alarm to activate. Attendants not manning lavatory doors should check passengers' comfort and continue beverage service.
    6. Pilot is authorized to turn off smoke alarm after activation, so as to allow those passengers who may wish to sleep to continue doing so.
    7. Three minutes after smoke alarm activation, open lavatory doors and extinguish fires (note: at higher altitudes, terrorist cooking time may require up to an additional two minutes). Re-shut lavatory doors after fires are extinguished.
    8. The drop-down oxygen-mask system may be activated if sufficient number of passengers find the odor of burnt terrorist to be disagreeable. Those passengers who find that they rather enjoy the smell are not required to use mask.
    9. If all lavatories have been utilized in terrorist-deactivation procedure, pilot may wish to land at nearest airport for brief janitorial service, as some passengers may be inconvenienced by a long flight without lavatory availability.
  • #39.
    1. Have an Arabic-speaking friend record the following message on an extended-play cassette tape: "This is your supreme leader, Osama bin Laden, speaking. These are your last instructions before fulfilling your mission. To gain entry to eternal glory and your promised harem on high, prostrate yourselves upon the floor -- now, you idiots -- and repeat mindlessly after me, as usual: "I am unworthy....I deserve to be covered in camel spittle....I am an unthinking sheep in wolves' clothing....I stupidly left all sorts of clues in my car..."
    2. Loop the tape, starting from "I am unworthy..." and repeat loop for four hours.
    3. Upon being hijacked, pop the tape into the plane's audio system.
    4. Order another mai tai from the attendant, and ask if you might have another one of those little bags of pretzels.
  • #40.
    1. At each airport, have one jet permanently parked at the end of a ramp, with a flight simulator in the cockpit and the windows shades in the cabin glued shut.
    2. Redirect all suspected terrorists to this plane, complete with a few passengers, a bored, gum-chewing waitress from the airport bar posing as a flight attendant, and two myopic, retired security guards posing as pilots.
    3. Upon simulated take off, allow hijackers to take over cockpit.
    4. Crew and the passengers, per routine, slip out the back door to their break room while hijackers celebrate their impending victory in the cockpit.
    5. Allow hijackers to crash the simulator into whatever landmark they want. Send audio and video tapes to FBI for study.
    6. Upon simulated crash, nozzles emit sufficient flames into cockpit to inflict second-degree burns, along with blinding, choking smoke. (Larger international terminals might wish to invest in the broken-glass-spewing model, for additional realistic effect.)
    7. Play the pre-recorded flight attendants' "bye-bye" tape, while activating trap door which drops hijackers into a brightly lit, desert-hot, sand-filled room, barren save for a few clouds painted on the walls and ceilings. Let them go without water for a few days while they wonder how they got the whole paradisical heaven thing wrong. Have janitorial crew clean and reset plane for next hijacking.
    8. Send hijackers to work fourteen-hour days in the steel mill of a hard-labor prison, making materials for rebuilding the WTC.
    9. Regularly rotate landmarks on flight simulator, and occasionally add new ones, to continue to attract the more ambitious terrorist.
  • #41.
    1. Never travel without bin-Laden disguise.
    2. Upon hijacking, don disguise and inform would-be suicidal idiots that this was only a test, to ensure that they were courageous enough to follow through with their mission. Order them to stand down and return to their seats.
    3. Go to each, privately, with an extra bag of honey-roasted peanuts, and whisper in his ear that the real hijacking target is the Space Shuttle flight scheduled to lift off from a top-secret base in Little Rock, Arkansas, on New Year's Eve. Tell them they have to find the base, quickly, or risk eternal damnation, dishonor, and losing all chance of their portraits ever being etched on the bin-Laden cave wall of fame.
    4. Save money on prosecution, detainment and execution by letting them go free upon landing.
    5. Alert the Little Rock coroner of three impending suicides on New Years morning.
  • #42.
    1. Next to the door of each cockpit, install a small closet, the door of which, once entered, automatically shuts and locks against exit.
    2. Label the closet door: "Pilots Only," and leave it unlocked.
    3. Label the cockpit door, "Emergency Exit," and keep it locked.
    4. In 97% of tests, this device deactivates at least one of the hijacking team. Tests on closets which allow the door to be opened a second time from the outside have proven effective in capturing a second hijacker in 63% of tests.

    Note: Closets as presently configured and installed can generally accommodate only two of the thinner variety of hijacker; this device should only be depended upon as supplementary to other methods listed.

  • #43.
    1. Paint Afghani flags on the US fighter jets on patrol, give the fighter pilots fake mustaches and teach them a few sentences in Arabic.
    2. Upon intercept, have fighter pilots radio the hijackers and claim that the forces of Allah have already successfully taken over America, that there is a big party being thrown in the terrorists' honor, where they will be allowed to kill as many Americans as their precious little hearts desire.
    3. Direct hijackers to follow their complimentary fighter escorts to the party location, which happens to be at JFK International.
    4. Invite New York Fire Department to the party.
  • #44.
    1. Install pull-down blinds on the cockpit windows, onto which can be projected an in-flight film.
    2. Upon threat of hijacking, pilots are to activate the plane's non-override auto-pilot, pull down the cockpit blinds, and start the film featuring a flight path over Saudi Arabia which gradually and inexorably descends and crashes into the shrine of Mecca.
    3. Invite hijackers into cockpit, exit and lock cockpit from outside.
    4. Buy First-Class a round of drinks. Inform Coach-Class that the cockpit is wired for sound on Channel 4.
    5. Once the muffled sounds of confusion, rising panic, screams of helplessness and fear gradually die down, open cockpit and drag out hijackers, who will be twitching and frothing incoherently, believing themselves to be eternally damned (which they are anyway, but at least now we're all on the same page.) Stow them in a single lavatory for the duration of the flight. Do not let them have any pretzels or little cookies, but all things considered, you might let them share a single cigarette.
    6. Okay, maybe half a cigarette.
    7. Nah, you're right, let 'em suffer.
  • #45.
    1. Seat suspected hijacker next to a wailing two-year old with the flu.
    2. Prior to take-off, hold the plane on the tarmac at the end of the runway, and turn off the ventilation.
    3. Every five minutes, have pilot assure the passengers that they're expected to take off in just five more minutes.
    4. Within forty-five minutes, if the suspect is indeed a hijacker and has a weapon, he'll have used it to force his way off the plane while it's still on the ground (as would even a Quaker by then, if the Quaker could get his hands on so much as a plastic butter knife).

    Note: This method is already widely and often employed, though largely unknown to the public as to its true purpose. The method has yet to result in exposing any hijackers, but has resulted in an undocumented number of flights proven to be hijacker free. The method is not popular with passengers, and is recommended only for the smaller airports which cannot afford the flight simulator (see # 40).