You got it Roadtrip.
The truth is that when our leaders say they are going to protect our cities from aircraft flown by terrorists they really mean they are going to protect Washington DC from these people. Anything else is a bonus. Which is the only airport in the US that has not reopened? Should it not be safe to re-open National Airport since we have all of these marvellous new security measures in place? Does it not make you think that our leaders do not have quite as much faith in the security measures as they would have us believe? (Does not matter, National should have been closed years ago but it was to convenient for our leaders on Friday night). Which city has continuous fighter patrols overhead, day and night? You can say that our leaders shuld be protected but this is a little bit like Orwell's Animal Farm. "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others".
Sixteen days after the disaster and all I have on the aircraft to protect myself is the point of a ball-point pen! Whoops, perhaps I should not have said that. Next thing is they will take away my ball-point pen and make me use a felt-tip marker!!!!
The politicians are fooling themselves. If I wanted to hijack a fully loaded aircraft to ram into the White House I would choose a heavy jet out of Dulles. Full of fuel and the element of surprise. If I chose Friday night it might also contain a few of the politicians who object to pilots being armed. Of course, they would be very relieved when the missile hit that the aircraft never made it to the White House. But, as they say, bang goes another promising political career. Fate plays funny tricks.
As it is, the comment I made earlier still stands. My primary resonsibility and duty is to the passengers and crew members who walked onto my aircraft at the departure station. If I can protect them on my flights then I will have automatically protected those on the ground. As a last ditch tool in a desperate situation give me something better than a felt-tip to use.
[ 28 September 2001: Message edited by: BOING ]