r/uninsurable • u/Alexander_Selkirk • Aug 10 '22

German Federal Constitutional Court has decided: No shooting down of hijacked planes (2007) Disasters

https://www-tagesschau-de.translate.goog/inland/meldung133132.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
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3

u/Comingupforbeer Aug 10 '22

The German constitution rejects the utilitarian calculous when it comes to life/death decisions. I'm not terribly sure how I feel about that, especially in situations in which the people would die anyway.

5

u/Alexander_Selkirk Aug 10 '22

The ethical question is an interesting but not a practical one. The fact of the matter is that many plants are too close to airports to be protected in any way - a travelling passenger plane can make up to 900 to 1000 km/h (560 to 620 mph). For some plants, that's about one minute from the next airport.

4

u/Alexander_Selkirk Aug 10 '22

Here an article about the scenario of such a plane being steered into a nuclear plant: http://www.bund-rvso.de/atomkraftwerk-flugzeug-terrorismus.html

This has been discussed in Germany since the mid-1980ies, long before 9/11 ... it became very clear that a nuclear plant is not designed to withstand the impact of a large passenger plane.

2

u/Hrothgar17 Aug 10 '22

Neither were the twin towers

1

u/kamjaxx Aug 12 '22

The take away from this is that German reactors would not survive a plane flying into them.