In Marla's defense, the editing of her interview appeared choppy to me, meaning that the cutting and splicing could have amplified her wackiness.
Now, she could have been talking coo-coo anyway, at length, and the editing was just designed to spare us more misery.
But the core of her ramblings are worth considering and investigating further; namely the political impacts of the skyjacking and the notion that Norjak was a rogue operation designed to force safety changes upon the aviation industry.
At the very least, I think we would be well-served if we developed a time-line for safety upgrades in the airlines business. I had a hefty conversation about this subject with Larry Finegold, as he lives in Israel part-time and flies El Al with regularity.
Besides the Cooper Vane, not much happened in the next year or two, but a shift in American politics did occur that resulted in improved airlines safety and a decrease in skyjackings - Cooper, Cuba, and others. I know this is Bob Knoss territory, but BK might be on the right track!
The political need for a well-known, cataclysmic event, like Norjak, was real. Remember, the legacy airlines needed the federal government to "nationalize" airline safety so that all airlines had to comply with all the regulations at the same time, and all airports had to participate as well. Otherwise, the low-cost airlines would skimp, and the problems wouldn't go away. Additionally, making the policy implementation nationwide meant that the airlines could pass the same level of costs off to their passengers at the same time. Such a deal. How could any airlines exec say no?
Federal orchestration of airline safety continues to this day! Gawd Bless the TSA!
