Why Call It an “Attempted Terrorist Attack”?

Describe What Happened, Not What the Terrorist Failed to Accomplish

Why is everyone calling the Flydubai terrorist attack an “attempted terrorist attack”?

I can understand calling it an “alleged terrorist attack” if the facts have not yet been established. But why attempted?

The attacker severely injured the captain with a crash axe and endangered the lives of everyone aboard the aircraft. Whatever his ultimate intentions, the violent act itself was not an attempt. It happened.

“Attempted” describes whether the act itself occurred, not whether the perpetrator achieved everything he intended to achieve.

If a terrorist is arrested at the airport before boarding a plane, armed and preparing to hijack it, that is an attempted attack. The attack never took place. But when a terrorist boards a plane, attacks the captain, and puts everyone aboard in mortal danger, the fact that he fails to achieve some larger objective does not turn the attack into an attempt.

Consider a terrorist who intends to kill 500 people but kills 50. Was that an “attempted” mass murder? No. It was mass murder. The fact that the perpetrator failed to achieve his maximum objective does not erase what he actually did.

By the same logic, one could call the October 7 massacre an “attempted” attack because Hamas may have had ambitions extending far beyond what it achieved, perhaps even the destruction of the State of Israel. But October 7 was not an attempted massacre. The massacre happened. Hamas’s failure to achieve every conceivable objective does not change that.

The same applies to September 11. Would we call the attacks an “attempted terrorist attack” because one of the hijacked aircraft failed to reach its intended target? Of course not. The attacks that did take place were real, completed acts of terrorism, regardless of which objectives the perpetrators failed to achieve.

An attack can be carried out even when its intended outcome is prevented.

This is not merely a semantic quibble. Calling the Flydubai incident an “attempted terrorist attack” shifts the focus from the violence that actually occurred to the larger catastrophe that was averted. It risks diminishing the gravity of the actual crime by framing the event around what the perpetrator failed to accomplish.

We should describe events according to what was actually done, not according to the maximum objective the perpetrators may have had in mind.

The attacker may have failed to carry out his ultimate plan. Thank goodness. But that does not mean he merely attempted a terrorist attack.

The attack happened. What was prevented was its intended outcome.