Seasunsandfly - as a Captain, your ultimate responsibility is the safety of your aircraft, passengers and crew. Until Tuesday it was always assumed that hijackers were generally not kamikaze types but (vaguely) rational types that would want something for nothing - like a free trip to Cuba or Tripoli and lots of publicity for their cause.
Therefore, the previous mindset was: do nothing to antagonise them and everything will work out OK.
As of Tuesday, those rules changed.
I don't have any answers - all I have is the knowledge that aviation has changed forever. It's going to become a lot more expensive and inconvenient for everyone - including crews - and a lot of airlines are going to go to the wall as a result.
Personally, my view is that bringing back the Skymarshals will be the only viable option - the debate is going to be whether this is overt, covert or a combination of the two. Probably the latter from a
PR viewpoint, though I'd prefer totally covert.
We've had the debate before about whether or not flight deck should get involved with air rage incidents - and I recall the concensus was an overwhelming
no.
From a practical viewpoint, if we assume that your employer gives you a Glock and you're sitting doing your stuff and a professional terrorist bursts in without warning - what are you going to do? Trying to use a firearm from a seated position is extremely difficult - I know, I've done it. Trying to use it on someone behind you, in the confines of a cramped cockpit, is all but impossible. You're then in a very difficult situation - the hijacker wants your weapon, and your FO is going to be killed if you don't hand it over. What do you do?
Or take scenario B. You're carrying Skymarshals and there has been a successful takeover - they've been neutralised. You have the flight deck door secured, but there's a terrorist on the other side who's telling you to open it - and to make his point, he's just killed one of your cabin crew. He has a female passenger as a human shield - you have 10 seconds to open the door or she gets killed as well. What do you do?
I'll tell you one thing - I hope
never to be in a position where I have to make any decisions like those.