Armed Pilot Update (APSA)

[I. M. Esperto]

APSA JULY, 2002 ARMED PILOTS UPDATE
Please Send This Update To Everyone You Know!


MEDIA MOMENTUM

APSA continues to the keep the issue of arming pilots in the forefront of aviation security related issues. During the past month APSA board members have made the circuit on various network and local TV as well as radio programs and have been interviewed by the print media. Your board members have been very successful at defeating the last remnants of illogical arguments being made against the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO)program. Some influential people who were adamantly against us are now on our side!

The biggest media event by far was the appearance of the late Captain Victor Saracini's widow, Mrs. Ellen Saracini on The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly himself. As you may recall, Victor Saracini was the Captain of the ill-fated United Flight 175 that hit tower two of the WTC. Ellen contacted APSA and offered her help with our issue. Captain Saracini was strongly in favor of arming pilots with firearms PRIOR to 9/11 and Mrs. Saracini does not want her hero husband's death to be in vain. She is a strong and courageous lady who succinctly stated the inarguable truth: ARMING PILOTS IS BAR-NONE, THE EASIEST, CHEAPEST AND MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO PREVENT FUTURE HIJACKINGS. Mrs. Saracini asked to make a short statement at the Senate Commerce Committee hearings on arming pilots held on July 25, 2002. Senator Ernst Hollings, the chairman of the committee, DENIED Ellen the opportunity to make that statement. When Bill O'Reilly heard about this he was rightfully outraged at the
Senator's arrogance. Mr. O'Reilly invited her on the show.

When asked if her husband had a gun on 9/11, would it have saved her husband and passenger's lives (as well as those in the WTC), Ellen simply said, "yes", a simple answer that says so much. Thousands of people would be alive today, and the government would not have to be funding one of the most expensive charades in our history - the hiring of tens-of-thousands federal screeners to grope and molest our citizens. "Yes" is the simple answer that seems to elude some of our esteemed elite politicians. You see, no mater how one tries to complicate the issue, gun beats box cutter EVERY TIME. Just as there are no Atheists in foxholes, every single person on board an airliner that has been attacked by a team of terrorists who have broken down the cockpit door will be praying that the pilots are armed with REAL, LETHAL FIREARMS. Any remaining resistance to arming pilots comes only from a few government bureaucrats, a couple of media elites, the Air Transport Association (ATA, the
airline management's lobby group) and al Queda. Those in favor are the huge majority of our nations airline pilots and the American people. Perhaps those that find themselves siding with al Queda and against professional airline pilots and clear-thinking Americans should re-evaluate their position.

Thank you, Ellen, for your courage, and God Bless you. Mr. O'Reilly, thanks for giving this courageous lady the opportunity to get her late husband's message out to her fellow Americans and to advance the cause of REAL aviation security.

King John is Gone

That's right, folks, John Magaw; the Undersecretary of Transportation and head of the Transport Security Administration (TSA - the Peoples ' Bureau of Aviation Safety) was fired by DOT Secretary Norm Mineta. This was the first major break in the administration's illogical stonewalling on arming airline pilots. "Differences of opinion on security issues" were the official reason for Magaw's dismissal. Inside sources say that Mineta and other high level officials were starting to see the handwriting on the wall on arming pilots. HR 4635 had just passed the House with an overwhelming vote and the Senate was getting ready to do the same. Saving face was now the order of the day. So long King John. Your dictatorial style of leadership and your lavish tastes ($420,000 office) will not be missed.
Nor will your will your heartfelt desire to turn our great country into a police state.

Where are we?

As you are aware, HR 4635 passed by a THREE QUARTERS MAJORITY vote. Thanks to strong efforts by APSA, APA and CAPA, the bill is a strong bill that will allow for all volunteer pilots to be armed if they pass a thorough training program, not the two-year "test" program advocated and endorsed by some that would have armed a mere 250 pilots. The ball is now in the Senate's court. Senate Bill S.2554 - an equally strong bill brought forward by Senator Smith (R NH) and Senator Boxer (D CA) is still waiting to be brought to the Senate floor. If the full Senate voted on the bill today, it would easily pass. Unfortunately, the two most commonly used methods of presenting a bill on the Senate floor have to pass through people who are or were adamantly opposed to this important initiative. The first method is by committee.

On July 25, 2002, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held hearings on the issue of arming pilots. Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) is the Chairman of that committee. He has been stubbornly opposed to arming pilots from the beginning. His desire was to stall the bill in the committee or dilute it enough so that it would be a useless program if passed by the Senate. Unfortunately, he was not alone. One of his strongest allies is the calculating Senator John McCain. The bill never made it out of the committee prior to the summer recess.

This is most likely a good thing. Sources now say that his colleagues on the committee are vigorously opposing Hollings. In addition, Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) is doing his part to pressure the good Senator with a rally in Columbia, SC, OpEds, and media appearances. (Thank You Representative Wilson!) Also, APSA members have put tremendous pressure on Chairman Hollings to move the armed pilot bill out of his committee for a fair hearing before the full Senate. It is APSA's understanding that the bill will most likely be presented to the Senate after the recess. Hollings is beginning to relent and it appears that he may not oppose our bill. However, we cannot take this for granted-We need to keep up the pressure on these guys.

The second method is for the Senate Majority leader to take HR 4635 to the floor for a vote. This could happen any time that Senator Daschle
chooses to do so and we need to keep pressure on him to bring HR 4635 to a vote before the Senate. However, we are not solely relying upon Senator Daschle or Hollings to do the right thing - in the Senate, we can always offer our bill as an amendment to another bill that is being voted upon. The bottom line is this; one way or another, we'll get an armed pilot bill to a vote before the full Senate very soon after the Senate re-convenes in September and we'll win the vote if you'll keep the pressure on the individual Senators.

As far as the White House is concerned, we have it from excellent sources that President Bush will not oppose this bill. He will sign it into law if it gets to his desk. What a great turnaround!

VITAL ACTION ITEMS

1. Call both your Senators. Tell them to support S.2554 or the House
version, HR 4635. The Capitol Switchboard is 202/224-3121. Just tell them your state of residence and they will connect you. You don't even need to know their names before you call.

2. Call Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle at 202/224-2321 and Senate
Minority Leader Trent Lott 202/224-6253. Tell them to "allow the FULL SENATE to consider HR 4635 or S.2554." Both are very strong pieces of legislation for arming pilots.

3. All Senators will be home until after Labor Day. Check your local
phone directory and call both of your Senators local offices. Voice your strong support for HR 4635 and S.2554. Ask your Senators to co-sponsor both bills.

We WILL get a vote in the Senate very soon after the Senate returns. With your continued activism, WE CAN WIN THIS VOTE. We're near the end of this marathon, so stay with us and we will get a meaningful program for arming airline pilots!



APSA Web Site: www.secure-skies.org

[beardy]

I have flown with some dominant but unstable people who considered themselves infallible and were unaware of their weaknesses and potential to be wrong. I would be deeply unhappy to think that some of them were now to carry firearms. Indeed, I would not, of choice, fly on their airline.

I can understand a lack of confidence in the ground security measures in place at airports world wide, not uniquely the USA. I feel that a more appropriate response is to ensure that those entrusted with ensuring our safety from a ground initiated attack do so in an intelligent and professional manner. Leaving those whose expertise is flying and managing an aircraft to concentrate on their job in an intelligent and profesional manner.

[I. M. Esperto]

"...unstable people..."?
I would prefer not to fly with them, period.

[TDK mk2]

You good ole boys can do with you like in the good ole U.S of A. but this ruling can only cover domestic flights within the States and I hope that other countries authorities are never persuaded to allow the carriage of firearms by flight crew on N registered aircraft in their airspace. It is emotive rhetoric such as that seen above that makes a mockery of law making.

[Wino]

The APA has put out some video on this that is worth seeing.

see here for videos (http://www.alliedpilots.org/Public/InfoCenter/streaming_media.asp)

Thinking that all attacks can be prevented is hopeless dreaming. IF you think you can't trust a pilot with a simple tool such as a firearm, how can you trust them with an AIRPLANE?

Cheers
WIno

[GlueBall]

Because of new armored cockpit doors and a new security mind set by pax and crew, the hijack threat has long been dwarfed by much larger security nightmares.

From what has been demonstrated in Israel, the new wave of terror will come from suicide bombers who will attempt to board with plastic explosives, either wrapped around their bodies or positioned in their checked baggage. No longer is cockpit entry necessary to terrorize the flying public. A remote controlled suitcase bomb detonated at altitude exactly over a large metropolitan area would have similar consequences as 9/11.

The biggest loophole in pax security is that not all checked baggage is screened for explosives. That's the scary part.

Part Two of a major security loophole are airport perimeters. Suicidal bombers could easily drive a dump truck loaded with explosives through a chain link fence right smack into a fully loaded 74 at the gate or on a taxiway.

It's pretty hard to get into people's minds! So, when you're dealing with just one determined terrorist who is intent on blowing himself up, what can a pistol toting aerial cowboy pilot do?

To be sure, the security focus must be at airports.

[Low-Pass]

Upping the ante, interesting move. The problem will still be, "what do you do if a hijacker has a blade at someone's (F/A of pax) throat?"

Also, just wondering if High School Teachers be armed in the near future to prevent Colombine type shootings at schools?

[havanapepe]

I have had the misfortune to fly with some very strange pilots throughout the world whose sanity is, in my mind, seriously in doubt. Paranoids, off beat, plain weird. Do you want to share the cockpit during the long hours of a night time long range crossing with someone who is armed and pondering the injustices of life, his evil ex-wife, or his firm conviction that the CIA, MI5, FBI, Surete and the extraterrestrials are all out to get him? or with F/Es who get flashbacks of their Viet Nam days?

[Low-Pass]

New directive:

Pilots shall now wear body armour and a protective helmet capable of stopping a .357 mugnum.

[Tuba Mirum]

I'd like to forward this, which may be helpful to the debate. It comes from the monthly newsletter of a gentleman named Bruce Schneier, who is well-known in the Information Security business. I take full responsibility for posting the text here.

--------------- (quote follows) -----------------------------

It's a quintessentially American solution: our nation's commercial aircraft
are at risk, so let's allow pilots to carry guns. We have visions of these
brave men and women as the last line of defense on an aircraft, and
courageously defending the cockpit against terrorists at 30,000 feet. I
can just imagine the made-for-TV movie.

Reality is more complicated than television, though. Sometimes, security
systems cause more problems than they solve. Putting guns on aircraft will
make us more vulnerable to attack, not less.

When people think of potential problems with an weapons in a cockpit, they
think of accidental shootings in the air, holes in the fuselage, and
possibly even equipment shattered by a stray bullet. This is a problem,
certainly, but not a major one. A bullet hole is small, and doesn't let a
whole lot of air out. And airplanes are designed to handle equipment
failures -- even serious failures -- and remain in the air. If I ran an
airline, I would worry more about accidents involving passengers, who are
much less able to survive a bullet wound and much more likely to sue.

The real dangers, though, involve the complex systems that must be put in
place before the first gun can ride along in the cockpit. There are major
areas of risk.

One, we need a system for getting the gun on the airplane. How does the
pilot get the gun? Does he carry it through the airport and onto the
plane? Is it issued to him after he's in the cockpit but before the plane
takes off? Is it secured in the cockpit at all times, even when there is
no one there? Any one of these solutions has its own set of security
vulnerabilities. The last thing we want is for an attacker to exploit one
of these systems in order to get himself a gun. Or maybe the last thing we
want is a shootout in a crowded airport.

Second, we need a procedure for storing the gun on the airplane. Does the
pilot carry it on his hip? Is it locked in a cabinet? If so, who has the
key? Is there one gun, or do the pilot and co-pilot each have
one? However the system works, it's ripe for abuse. If the gun is always
at the pilot's hip, an attacker can take it away from him when he leaves
the cockpit. (Don't laugh; policemen get their guns taken away from them
all the time, and they're trained to prevent that.) If the guns remain in
the cockpit when it is unoccupied, we have a whole new set of problems to
worry about.

Third, we need a system of training pilots in gun handling and
marksmanship. Guns require training to use well; how much training can we
expect our pilots to have? This is different from training sky
marshals. Security is the primary job of a sky marshal; they're expected
to learn how to use a gun. Flying planes is the primary job of a pilot.

Giving pilots guns is a disaster waiting to happen. The current system
spends a lot of time and effort keeping weapons off airplanes and out of
airports; the proposed scheme would inject thousands of handguns into that
system. There are just too many pilots and too many flights every day;
mistakes will happen. Someone will do an inventory one night and find a gun
missing, or ten. Someone will find one left in a cockpit. Someone may
even find one on a seat in a terminal.

El Al is the most security-conscious airline in the world. Their pilots
remain behind two bulletproof doors, and they're unarmed. It's the job of
the pilot to land the plane safely, not to engage terrorists in close
combat. For that, they rely on sky marshals, crew, and passengers. If
pilots have to leave the cockpit to solve a security problem, it's too late.

United States airlines are not comparable to El Al. Our flights don't
travel with two armed sky marshals each. We don't perform security checks
on passengers that, while legal in Israel, would violate U.S. laws. We
don't have two bulletproof doors separating the cockpit from the
passengers. Many politicians see guns as a quick fix to a problem that
can't wait for a careful solution.

Personally, I don't think pilots should be armed. But even if I thought
they did, I still wouldn't give them guns. Guns aren't designed to be used
in the cramped spaces you find in airplane cockpits. They have too high a
risk of doing unwanted damage if they miss. And there's too much risk
involved in putting thousands of guns in airports, storing them, getting
them on and off airplanes, and keeping them in cockpits. If you want to
arm pilots, it would be much smarter to give them billy clubs or
tasers. At least those weapons make sense for the situation.

------------------------ (end quote) ---------------------------------

[arcniz]

Yeah, it isn't totally easy to do this. But, if American ingenuity can already build the airplanes, fly them around, and deliver a lot of people with relatively high levels of safety and comfort from a to b, then this additional detail ought to be a soluble problem - do-able on a scale smaller than the space program.

Just as prayer does not provide a very good method of contraception, it shouldn't be the first - or last - line of defense in passenger aircraft. This isn't a solution for all of eternity, it is a solution right now for a problem that seems fairly immediate.

And if there really are some truly crazy people piloting passenger transport aircraft - even moderately crazy ones, then this offers a great opportunity and rationale to refocus their career choices.

[S76Heavy]

Excellent quote. You will find most Europeans (like myself) support this train of thought.
Security should start at the airport. Arming pilots is just a cosmetic solution and will cause you grief.