To prevent this thread going round in circles I will try and make a point that not many people have brought up. Once a person with evil intent is on the a/c then it is too late. In the case of the mass murderers of last week it has been shown that they not only perpetrated the hijack but did so FOUR times within minutes of each other.
What we have here is a massive failure of the intelligence services. Considering the time that it took to plan and set up these terrorist acts and the logistics involved it is suprising that the intelligence services, with huge resources at their disposal, failed to alert anyone about this attack. Had they had some evidence based on intelligence gathered they would have at least been able to alert the various security services to step up their vigilance but sadly this was not to be.
Having a go at the security personnel doing their job or having a go at us pilots for being subjected to what often is seen as futile, knee jerk reaction and a lack of understanding by both sides as to what really needs to be done is not going to help.
No doubt all the issues are being discussed by the appropriate groups in slightly more secure forums than this but at the same time maybe they will be looking here to see what we also think about the current systems. I just hope that common sense prevails and any new measures introduced are workable and take into account both sides of the argument we have seen here.
This one is going to be closed for now.