Crew carry weapons? You must be joking! All you do is give the hijacker another means of taking over the A/C. We are not trained in the use of guns and knives, and IMHO nor should we be. Personally I would not carry a gun.
Pepper/capsicum spray? Pilots, make sure you do your oxygen drill BEFORE you use it in anger. You'll get a similar effect as to firing off a Dry Chem extinguisher in a confined space. Particularly on a flight deck.
Lame, you've been away from the pointy end of A/C too long. All the A/C I fly have crash axes, and have done so for many years. Yes, you could use a BCF as a weapon, but the effects wear off very quickly. And for it to work you have to inhale it. You'd be better off hitting them over the head with the bottle than spraying it in their faces.
I must agree with prunehead. Airport security is a joke. You have a sheltered workshop of contractors running domestic security in YSSY, and NO security at the majority of regional outports. It's laughable. All you would need to do if you were a terrorist is RUN away. They would never catch you!
This issue is similar in many ways to unruly/drunk passengers. A lot of this can be stopped at the gate, but it isn't. Usually because of slackness/laziness on the part of gate staff who find it "too hard" to exercise their responsibility and duty to the travelling public. "It's okay, the crew will sort it out". What a load of crap...
The key to all this is to make every effort to stop potential threats BEFORE they get through the gate. Anything else is closing the gate after the horse has bolted.
Here are a couple of suggestions for reducing the threat:
1. Get rid of the security contractors and make it a federal police or customs responsibility at ALL RPT airports. We need highly trained individuals, not 1 week wonders from Centrelink work for the dole.
2. Increase/intensify screening procedures. If that means pax have to check in earlier, and be subject to full bag searches, then so be it. I bet you won't get any complaints from them in light of recent occurences...
3. Minimise or eliminate carry-on baggage. This would not only reduce the threat, but improve on-time performance
Just ask any F/A
Cost, you say? The cost of the WTC tragedy is sitting around $80bn at the moment, and rising.
What cost safety? Ask Dick Smith
Over to you.
[ 01 October 2001: Message edited by: Hugh Jarse ]