Gary, no flame intended!
Tripower455,
Most hijackers don't want to die, It's very very rare for a hijacker to die in the cause of whatever they are campaining for,
However, Most do take precautions to protect themselves and the pin-out grenade is a favoured one.
In that case, keep the door locked and land at the nearest suitable airport. No one will die, since he will not let the pin go. The gun is a moot point. See my analogy about the APU fire bottle.....
At the end of the day a pilot is paid to:
Aviate
Navigate
Commuicate
I don't see 'shoot' anywhere in that list.
If a pilot is dead, then how is he going to do those things? If you add shoot to the list, he might not be dead.
I don't see "act" in the list either, yet we must perform in the "security" show every time we go to work.
I don't see how a firearm can help a pilot keep control, The best way to retain control of the plane is to STAY ON THE FLIGHTDECK not running around pretending to be Steven Segal shooting people.
I agree with staying on the flightdeck. armed or not
If you are unarmed, and the bad guys breach the cockpit, you will not be on the flight deck very long after your throat is slit. You will likely be on the galley floor.
There are hundreds of thousands of potential terrorist scenarios, It's not just a matter of the good guy vs the bad guy, A pilot cannot be expected to be able to deal with all of those scenarios,
No, but an armed pilot can deal with a scenario that is not only likely, it has already happened. Several times. Why have we recently gotten cargo fire suppression systems on the aircraft? Because there was a cargo fire that took down an aircraft. Should we remove them since they won't have any effect on an engine fire? Every piece of emergency equipment on the aircraft is there for a specific purpose, usually because an incident occurred that could have been prevented had that piece of equipment been installed. Again, see my APU fire bottle analogy.
When an hostage situation happens on the ground there is a veritable army invovled in solving it with as little loss of life (both terrorists and civilians) as possible.
This is an option that we do not have in an aluminum cylinder six miles up in the air. Hostage crisises in this situation are currently solved with the business end of a missile.
If pilots start going armed then there will be more death and destruction in the skies than we have now.
Please back this statement up with fact.
Prior to 1987, many US pilots regularly carried guns at work. There had not been one problem to that point, in fact, the only time that I can recall a gun ever being used was to successfully thwart a hijacking. It was never a "problem" until the feds started treating pilots as passengers. Pilots, by nature and neccessity, are responsible people.
The reason that pilots stopped carrying guns circa 1987, was due to the PSA 1771 incident. After a ground ops person hijacked an aircraft, pilots had to submit to passenger screening. Of course, the "trusted" ground ops employees, (which is everyone except pilots and FA's), STILL don't submit to any type of screening to access the "secure" areas.......
Forgive me if my confidence in this Maginot Line security progam is lacking.
With any hijacking, the hijackers must now be kept away from the flightdeck, at any cost. It is unlikely that suicidal hijackers will identify themselves as such- how do we tell what kind of hijacker we have? Take them where they want to go, but don't give them an opportunity to take control. In the final analysis, if they're willing to destroy the aircraft to gain access to the controls, then givng them that access seems like a very bad idea. Once the aircraft is safely on the ground, throw the firearm out the window if you want to keep it away from the hijacker!
Very well said!