Aren't we all barking up the wrong tree?
Unless I'm much mistaken this debate is related to preventing atrocities following the style of those of Sept 11th. (On the assumption that we were well enough prepared for threats extant before Sept11)
The modus operandi of those terrs was to take physical control of the aeroplane by getting one of their number into one of the driver's seats. It is generally accepted that this is not possible by force - ie you cannot drag an uncooperative pilot fron his seat be he unwilling or dead. They thus formulated a plan that no normal human being could resist, ie the disembowelling of cabin crew that the flight deck felt they had to react to. Thus a seat was vacated.
Has anyone been advised by the British Government (or any other, for that matter) of the impotance of never vacating your seat under coercion? The Hell we have! Surely this is the ONLY advice that matters, yet NOBODY has given it. What the **** are the safety regulators playing at? They confiscate our teaspoons and Swiss Army knives, ignore our fire axes and utterly fail to advise on the most critical event of all! This is an international scandal.
Now just how does fitting Titanium doors address all this?
It does not, nor can it. EVER.
Whilst pilots need to leave the flight deck, for access or for physiological reasons then no amount of armour plating can have the least effect, can it? Add to that the need for occasional food and drink to be brought in a further breach is introduced, that of cabin crew having access. Access which can be coerced with a knife or gun. What price armoured doors?
Come on fellas, armoured doors is utterly impractical media-appeasing humbug. It will not work because it cannot.
Unless you lock and bolt the poor pilots in hours before take off and run psychological checks to ascertain just exactly who you actually have up there, force them to fly the entire route with no food, drink or toilet and only unlock them as the securicor van comes alongside at the end of the day....
"I was locked into a metal cell 5' by 5' by 5',for 12 hrs at atime, fed day old cold food and made to crap in the same bucket as my cellmate. I was virtually strip searched each end of the day and allowed no contact with my colleagues during that time. Amnesty International would raise merry hell at the UN over such barbaric torture. But I describe the proposed life of an Airline Pilot, not a political prisoner. Can you see the difference?
Perhaps we'd be better examining the causes of the problem before inventing irrational and useless fixes?
[ 30 October 2001: Message edited by: Agaricus bisporus ]