U.S. pilots will not be armed... (merged)
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hmn, Id rather there were less hijackers making it onto a/c than more shooting of them on a/c. There's something about bullets flying around a thin tube surrounded by fuel and full of electrics that un-nerves me.
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Well, Ethiopian are definitely getting more modern anyway, the last time an unsuccessful high jack attempt was made in the Middle East/Africa they cut the high jackers throats!
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This prompts a review of the British Afghan hijack case. Are there any 'good' hijacks where the perpetrators should not be sent back to the nation of hijacking? I don't think so. So why is the UK making that planeload of hijackers so welcome? What example does that set?
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Well said llamas and Capt.Crosswind.
KISS (keep it simple stupid) this isn't about the latest in gun technology and image but the basic requirement to add another layer of defense without overwhelming the present duties and responsibilities of the pilots. Every air force officer in the past 50+ years has had basic training and proficiency checks using the humble .38, and carried them on board his or her aircraft. The naysayers in the arming of the pilot’s seem to think that we have to be trained as counterterrorism experts, whereas basic, safe gun handling and proficiency is all that is required. An armed pilot will not leave the flight deck in pursuit of bad guys in the back, but fortify the flight deck so as to get the aircraft on the ground ASAP.
Drawing from the many threads on security, arming, pilot decisions regarding safety issues on board the aircraft etc., there appears to be a common thread from the naysayer:
-piloting is about glamour and pay
-computers can fly the airplane anyway
-someone can fly the aircraft from the ground
-a gun would just boost a pilot’s ego
I do not mean to discredit naysayers whom are pilots, as I stated earlier this is about a balanced debate. As there are many reasons to arm the flight deck there are equal reasons not to arm it. What I will vehemently defend is our professionalism, responsibility, authority and the fact that yes; a pilot can be trained to handle a simple tool such as a firearm.
The recent release of the actions taken on the AA flight with the shoe-bomber give vivid and chilling detail of what the crew of a flight can encounter (congratulations to the entire crew on a job well done). At the crew level, we will study this scenario and train for it in the years to come, the same as when wind shear was first identified. We identify problems; prepare solutions and prevention strategies then train, train and train. Anyone who believes you can leave this to a computer should stick their head back into their Buck Rogers comic book and enjoy their take on reality.
As some may have astutely observed, an armed flight deck would not have helped in the case of the shoe bomber. However, an armed flight deck armed with pertinent intelligence (which was out there and known by the FBI and other security agencies), up to-date threat training and re-stated positions of authority and responsibility would be a big step in hi-jack /aircraft threat prevention.
Everything is at the political level at this point (this includes the unions which in my view are as politically charged and inept as our federal masters).
In the meantime, the crews will continue to relinquish their shoes and finger nail clippers at screening in the interest of "aviation security".
Drawing from the many threads on security, arming, pilot decisions regarding safety issues on board the aircraft etc., there appears to be a common thread from the naysayer:
-piloting is about glamour and pay
-computers can fly the airplane anyway
-someone can fly the aircraft from the ground
-a gun would just boost a pilot’s ego
I do not mean to discredit naysayers whom are pilots, as I stated earlier this is about a balanced debate. As there are many reasons to arm the flight deck there are equal reasons not to arm it. What I will vehemently defend is our professionalism, responsibility, authority and the fact that yes; a pilot can be trained to handle a simple tool such as a firearm.
The recent release of the actions taken on the AA flight with the shoe-bomber give vivid and chilling detail of what the crew of a flight can encounter (congratulations to the entire crew on a job well done). At the crew level, we will study this scenario and train for it in the years to come, the same as when wind shear was first identified. We identify problems; prepare solutions and prevention strategies then train, train and train. Anyone who believes you can leave this to a computer should stick their head back into their Buck Rogers comic book and enjoy their take on reality.
As some may have astutely observed, an armed flight deck would not have helped in the case of the shoe bomber. However, an armed flight deck armed with pertinent intelligence (which was out there and known by the FBI and other security agencies), up to-date threat training and re-stated positions of authority and responsibility would be a big step in hi-jack /aircraft threat prevention.
Everything is at the political level at this point (this includes the unions which in my view are as politically charged and inept as our federal masters).
In the meantime, the crews will continue to relinquish their shoes and finger nail clippers at screening in the interest of "aviation security".
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"So why is the UK making that planeload of hijackers so welcome?"
Because we always make everyone welcome, law abiding applicants for entry and bogus asylum seekers alike.
The UK taxpayer also spent a fortune providing lawyers to defend them when they were done for highjacking.
"What example does that set?"
Precisely.
That's one of the reasons we attract more bogus asylum seekers than any country in Europe, and probably the world.
When then Home Secretary Jack Straw made a statement saying they'd be sent straight back because highjackers could not be seen to benefit from their actions there were howls of protest and he had to apologise and say he meant "after a trial, of course."
Because we always make everyone welcome, law abiding applicants for entry and bogus asylum seekers alike.
The UK taxpayer also spent a fortune providing lawyers to defend them when they were done for highjacking.
"What example does that set?"
Precisely.
That's one of the reasons we attract more bogus asylum seekers than any country in Europe, and probably the world.
When then Home Secretary Jack Straw made a statement saying they'd be sent straight back because highjackers could not be seen to benefit from their actions there were howls of protest and he had to apologise and say he meant "after a trial, of course."
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Well now, for all those opposed....Sky Marshals do indeed work.
Like Wyatt Earp...plug 'em fast...case closed.
No trial, no three squares a day...just very....dead.
Works good, lasts a long time.
Like Wyatt Earp...plug 'em fast...case closed.
No trial, no three squares a day...just very....dead.
Works good, lasts a long time.
Moderate, Modest & Mild.
"Fools rush in (again) 411A.
Doctors said that about Thalidomide when it was released as a sedative!!
Assuming our "Sky Marshals" Buck and Roy Rogers) were NOT such "Dead-eye Dicks" - and obviously in this case they weren't, as a steward was wounded - and a couple of stray bullets entered the pilots' bodies. Remember, that cockpit door is double/triple latched from the INside.
I agree with the end result obtained in this case, but the weapons need further refining.
Doctors said that about Thalidomide when it was released as a sedative!!
Assuming our "Sky Marshals" Buck and Roy Rogers) were NOT such "Dead-eye Dicks" - and obviously in this case they weren't, as a steward was wounded - and a couple of stray bullets entered the pilots' bodies. Remember, that cockpit door is double/triple latched from the INside.
I agree with the end result obtained in this case, but the weapons need further refining.
Grandpa Aerotart
Kap M...I must most humbly and sincerely grovel at your feet seeking your forgivness and understanding for what I'm about to type
411A on this point and ONLY this point I agree with you...the only good hijacker is a dead one.
If they hijack an aircraft to a 3rd country and claim asylum then just put em on an aircraft home...shackled, and let their own countrymen deal with them...clearly the Politicians and Bleeding heart, cross dressing tree huggers can't face facts so why make them!
Pretty soon we'd run out of potential hijackers...it won't happen overnight, but it will happen
Chuck.
411A on this point and ONLY this point I agree with you...the only good hijacker is a dead one.
If they hijack an aircraft to a 3rd country and claim asylum then just put em on an aircraft home...shackled, and let their own countrymen deal with them...clearly the Politicians and Bleeding heart, cross dressing tree huggers can't face facts so why make them!
Pretty soon we'd run out of potential hijackers...it won't happen overnight, but it will happen
Chuck.
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100% CORRECT
Chimbu chuckles - go to the top of the class. Dealing with hijackers must be SWIFT and FINAL.
If they hijack the aircraft to a 3rd country, I say, forget the shackles and wasting good space sending them home - execute the bastards on the tarmac with a complement of CNN news crew there to record the event.
A deterent is what is needed and a few more in flight shootings by the air marshalls or special services target practice on the tarmac will be all that is required.
If they hijack the aircraft to a 3rd country, I say, forget the shackles and wasting good space sending them home - execute the bastards on the tarmac with a complement of CNN news crew there to record the event.
A deterent is what is needed and a few more in flight shootings by the air marshalls or special services target practice on the tarmac will be all that is required.
Last edited by Whiskery; 11th Jun 2002 at 06:31.
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Mohammed Atta and his federal loan officer
My apologies on the long post, however a direct link was not available and the article is to good to pass up...
Mark Steyn
National Post
When last in this space, 10 days ago, I was writing about whether political correctness kills. This was apropos the 9/11 nutters: "Everything they did stuck out. But it didn't matter. Because the more they stuck out, the more everyone who mattered was trained to look the other way."
I didn't know the half of it. The other day, Johnelle Bryant, an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gave an interview to ABC News in which she revealed that Mohammed Atta and three other September 11th terrorists had visited her Florida office seeking government loans. America, it seems, came this close to having the World Trade Center incinerated at the taxpayers' expense.
Mr. Atta swung by in May, 2000, and Ms. Bryant remembers quite a bit about it. "At first," she says, "he refused to speak with me," on the grounds that she was, in his words, "but a female." After he'd reiterated the point, she pulled rank: "I told him that if he was interested in getting a farm-service agency loan in my servicing area, then he would need to deal with me." Throughout the hour-long interview, he continued to dismiss her as "but a female."
Ms. Bryant says the applicant was asking for $650,000 to start a crop-dusting business. His plan was to buy a six-seater twin-prop and then remove the seats. "He wanted to build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting."
Hmm.
When she explained that his application would have to be processed, Mr. Atta became "very agitated." He'd apparently been expecting to leave the office with cash in hand. "He asked me," recalls Ms. Bryant, "what would prevent him from going behind my desk and cutting my throat and making off with the millions of dollars in that safe." Try this with your Royal Bank loan officer -- I find it works every time. But Ms. Bryant replied politely that there was no money in the safe because loans are never given in cash, and also that she was trained in karate.
His fiendish plan stymied at every turn, Mr. Atta then spotted an aerial view of Washington hanging on the wall behind her. He told her he particularly liked the way it got all the famous landmarks of the city in one convenient picture, pointing specifically to the Pentagon and the White House. "He pulled out a wad of cash," says Ms. Bryant, "and started throwing money on my desk. He wanted that picture really bad."
She told him it wasn't for sale, but he only tossed more dough at her. "His look on his face became very bitter at that point," Ms. Bryant remembers. "He said, 'How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it,' like the cities in his country had been destroyed?"
Hmm.
Mr. Atta then moved on to other prominent landmarks in other American cities, and enquired about security at the World Trade Center. Ms. Bryant had a Dallas Cowboys souvenir on her desk, and he asked her about their spectacular stadium and, specifically, the "hole in the roof."
At that point, the chit-chat turned to Mr. Atta's own country, which he claimed was Afghanistan. "He mentioned Osama bin Laden," she says. "He could have been a character on Star Wars for all I knew." So Mr. Atta helpfully explained that this bin Laden guy "would someday be known as the world's greatest leader."
Alas, the interview ended badly from the terrorists' point of view when Ms. Bryant informed her visitor that the loan program is for farm-based projects and a crop-dusting business did not qualify.
A few weeks later, another September 11th killer showed up, Marwan al-Shehhi, seeking half-a-million bucks supposedly to buy a sugar-cane farm. Accompanying him was Mr. Atta, but he was cunningly disguised with a pair of glasses and claiming to be someone else entirely, attending in his capacity as Mr. al-Shehhi's accountant. Sportingly, Ms. Bryant went along with the wheeze. I'm reminded of the time my sister tried to wangle her boyfriend a day off work. She called up the receptionist and, adopting a fake accent, told her that she was the dentist's secretary and he needed to come in immediately for critical dental work. "My God, that's terrible," said the receptionist. "I'll tell him at once." She then buzzed through to the boyfriend: "Stewart, Karen just called pretending to be the dentist's secretary. Do you think she needs to see a doctor?"
But Ms. Bryant didn't think Mr. Atta was sick. The safe-breaking, the throat-slitting, the fake specs ... why, he was just being charmingly multicultural! "I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from," she says. "I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation into our country as easy for him as I could." Unfortunately, his imaginative business plan for a crop-duster capable of crop-dusting Texas was frustrated by the unduly onerous restrictions and bureaucratic torpor of the USDA program. By late summer, Mr. Atta and his chums had concluded the government was never going to buy them their own twin-props and they'd have to make do with the aircraft that were already up there. So they switched their flight training courses from small planes to large jet simulators, and told their instructors to skip all that takeoff and landing stuff.
Ms. Bryant has come forward now because she thinks "it's very vital that the Americans realize that when these people come to the United States, they don't have a big 'T' on their forehead." No, indeed. In some cases, they have a big "T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T" flashing in neon off the end of their nose. Ten days ago, I pointed out that these fellows made virtually no effort to blend in. They weren't in "deep cover," they were barely covered at all. Atta was the brains of the operation, and he did a marginally better job of it than Leslie Nielsen would have. His one great insight into Western culture was his assumption that he could get a government grant to take out the Pentagon. Yet no matter how dumb he was, officialdom was always dumber.
"If they watch this interview and they see the type of questions that Atta asked me," Ms. Bryant told ABC News, "then perhaps they will recognize a terrorist, and make the call that I didn't make." Meanwhile, here are some signs to look for:
1) He threatens to cut your throat.
2) He talks about the destruction of prominent landmarks.
3) He enquires about security at said landmarks.
4) He hails Osama bin Laden as a great leader.
There'll be more of these stories, tales of men virtually screaming their intentions but up against a culture sensitivity-trained into a coma. A stump-toothed Appalachian mountain man would get slung out on his ear if he was that misogynist and abusive in a government office. In a Hollywood movie, the guy refusing to deal with the little lady and demanding to see the real boss would be a sexist Republican Congressman. In the new motion-picture blockbuster The Sum Of All Fears, the Islamic terrorists of Tom Clancy's novel have been replaced with neo-Nazis -- a safe villain that won't offend our delicate multicultural sensibilities.
The good news is we're up against idiots. The bad news is we're also up against the suppler idiocies of current Western orthodoxy. Thus, the U.S. government's new plans to photograph and fingerprint visitors from countries "believed to harbour terrorists" have already been attacked by Mary Robinson, the UN Human Rights honcho who's never met an Arab dictator she didn't like. Islamists want to kill us in the name of Islam. Regrettable, but there it is. If we pretend otherwise, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Islamic Society of Britain might be nice to us. But, speaking personally, I can't say I care. If Islamic lobby groups throughout the Western world really want to hitch their star to a bunch of psychopathic morons, good luck to them. It's a free country. Hey, we'll even give you a government grant to tell us how racist we are.
Mark Steyn
National Post
When last in this space, 10 days ago, I was writing about whether political correctness kills. This was apropos the 9/11 nutters: "Everything they did stuck out. But it didn't matter. Because the more they stuck out, the more everyone who mattered was trained to look the other way."
I didn't know the half of it. The other day, Johnelle Bryant, an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gave an interview to ABC News in which she revealed that Mohammed Atta and three other September 11th terrorists had visited her Florida office seeking government loans. America, it seems, came this close to having the World Trade Center incinerated at the taxpayers' expense.
Mr. Atta swung by in May, 2000, and Ms. Bryant remembers quite a bit about it. "At first," she says, "he refused to speak with me," on the grounds that she was, in his words, "but a female." After he'd reiterated the point, she pulled rank: "I told him that if he was interested in getting a farm-service agency loan in my servicing area, then he would need to deal with me." Throughout the hour-long interview, he continued to dismiss her as "but a female."
Ms. Bryant says the applicant was asking for $650,000 to start a crop-dusting business. His plan was to buy a six-seater twin-prop and then remove the seats. "He wanted to build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting."
Hmm.
When she explained that his application would have to be processed, Mr. Atta became "very agitated." He'd apparently been expecting to leave the office with cash in hand. "He asked me," recalls Ms. Bryant, "what would prevent him from going behind my desk and cutting my throat and making off with the millions of dollars in that safe." Try this with your Royal Bank loan officer -- I find it works every time. But Ms. Bryant replied politely that there was no money in the safe because loans are never given in cash, and also that she was trained in karate.
His fiendish plan stymied at every turn, Mr. Atta then spotted an aerial view of Washington hanging on the wall behind her. He told her he particularly liked the way it got all the famous landmarks of the city in one convenient picture, pointing specifically to the Pentagon and the White House. "He pulled out a wad of cash," says Ms. Bryant, "and started throwing money on my desk. He wanted that picture really bad."
She told him it wasn't for sale, but he only tossed more dough at her. "His look on his face became very bitter at that point," Ms. Bryant remembers. "He said, 'How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it,' like the cities in his country had been destroyed?"
Hmm.
Mr. Atta then moved on to other prominent landmarks in other American cities, and enquired about security at the World Trade Center. Ms. Bryant had a Dallas Cowboys souvenir on her desk, and he asked her about their spectacular stadium and, specifically, the "hole in the roof."
At that point, the chit-chat turned to Mr. Atta's own country, which he claimed was Afghanistan. "He mentioned Osama bin Laden," she says. "He could have been a character on Star Wars for all I knew." So Mr. Atta helpfully explained that this bin Laden guy "would someday be known as the world's greatest leader."
Alas, the interview ended badly from the terrorists' point of view when Ms. Bryant informed her visitor that the loan program is for farm-based projects and a crop-dusting business did not qualify.
A few weeks later, another September 11th killer showed up, Marwan al-Shehhi, seeking half-a-million bucks supposedly to buy a sugar-cane farm. Accompanying him was Mr. Atta, but he was cunningly disguised with a pair of glasses and claiming to be someone else entirely, attending in his capacity as Mr. al-Shehhi's accountant. Sportingly, Ms. Bryant went along with the wheeze. I'm reminded of the time my sister tried to wangle her boyfriend a day off work. She called up the receptionist and, adopting a fake accent, told her that she was the dentist's secretary and he needed to come in immediately for critical dental work. "My God, that's terrible," said the receptionist. "I'll tell him at once." She then buzzed through to the boyfriend: "Stewart, Karen just called pretending to be the dentist's secretary. Do you think she needs to see a doctor?"
But Ms. Bryant didn't think Mr. Atta was sick. The safe-breaking, the throat-slitting, the fake specs ... why, he was just being charmingly multicultural! "I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from," she says. "I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation into our country as easy for him as I could." Unfortunately, his imaginative business plan for a crop-duster capable of crop-dusting Texas was frustrated by the unduly onerous restrictions and bureaucratic torpor of the USDA program. By late summer, Mr. Atta and his chums had concluded the government was never going to buy them their own twin-props and they'd have to make do with the aircraft that were already up there. So they switched their flight training courses from small planes to large jet simulators, and told their instructors to skip all that takeoff and landing stuff.
Ms. Bryant has come forward now because she thinks "it's very vital that the Americans realize that when these people come to the United States, they don't have a big 'T' on their forehead." No, indeed. In some cases, they have a big "T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T" flashing in neon off the end of their nose. Ten days ago, I pointed out that these fellows made virtually no effort to blend in. They weren't in "deep cover," they were barely covered at all. Atta was the brains of the operation, and he did a marginally better job of it than Leslie Nielsen would have. His one great insight into Western culture was his assumption that he could get a government grant to take out the Pentagon. Yet no matter how dumb he was, officialdom was always dumber.
"If they watch this interview and they see the type of questions that Atta asked me," Ms. Bryant told ABC News, "then perhaps they will recognize a terrorist, and make the call that I didn't make." Meanwhile, here are some signs to look for:
1) He threatens to cut your throat.
2) He talks about the destruction of prominent landmarks.
3) He enquires about security at said landmarks.
4) He hails Osama bin Laden as a great leader.
There'll be more of these stories, tales of men virtually screaming their intentions but up against a culture sensitivity-trained into a coma. A stump-toothed Appalachian mountain man would get slung out on his ear if he was that misogynist and abusive in a government office. In a Hollywood movie, the guy refusing to deal with the little lady and demanding to see the real boss would be a sexist Republican Congressman. In the new motion-picture blockbuster The Sum Of All Fears, the Islamic terrorists of Tom Clancy's novel have been replaced with neo-Nazis -- a safe villain that won't offend our delicate multicultural sensibilities.
The good news is we're up against idiots. The bad news is we're also up against the suppler idiocies of current Western orthodoxy. Thus, the U.S. government's new plans to photograph and fingerprint visitors from countries "believed to harbour terrorists" have already been attacked by Mary Robinson, the UN Human Rights honcho who's never met an Arab dictator she didn't like. Islamists want to kill us in the name of Islam. Regrettable, but there it is. If we pretend otherwise, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Islamic Society of Britain might be nice to us. But, speaking personally, I can't say I care. If Islamic lobby groups throughout the Western world really want to hitch their star to a bunch of psychopathic morons, good luck to them. It's a free country. Hey, we'll even give you a government grant to tell us how racist we are.
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arming pilots
One pilot here in the US recently wrote a letter to a newspaper saying, despite ALPA's position, most of the pilots he surveyed, when asked, "Would you like to fly with some of the pilots you have worked with, knowing they have access to a gun in the cockpit?" the answer was almost invariably, "No!"
Judging by some of the posts here, it is easy to understand why.
I'm a working ALPA member, but disagree with their position.
There is no viable solution, either way. I know some pilots would like to go down fighting, instead of feeling helpless. Would that solve the problem? Probably not. Commanders chafing at loss of authority somehow seem to think they can solve the problem by shooting terrorists and save the day. Good luck!
Perhaps a pistol might comfort a pilot, but I seriously doubt guns in the cockpit in most cases would be enough to prevent hijacks by determined terrorists.
Calls for "viable alternatives" are hollow. There ain't none.
Aye, there's the rub.
Judging by some of the posts here, it is easy to understand why.
I'm a working ALPA member, but disagree with their position.
There is no viable solution, either way. I know some pilots would like to go down fighting, instead of feeling helpless. Would that solve the problem? Probably not. Commanders chafing at loss of authority somehow seem to think they can solve the problem by shooting terrorists and save the day. Good luck!
Perhaps a pistol might comfort a pilot, but I seriously doubt guns in the cockpit in most cases would be enough to prevent hijacks by determined terrorists.
Calls for "viable alternatives" are hollow. There ain't none.
Aye, there's the rub.
The Afghans who took the Ariana 727 are still here because they are legally refugees: persons fleeing persecution or well-founded fear of persecution, as laid down in the UN Convention on Refugees. As I recall, it later came out that the hijack was a put-up job to get out of Afghanistan and everyone on the aircraft was more or less in agreement, still less did anybody get hurt. We can't send 'em back for nicking one of Mullah Omar's aeroplanes...
BTW: Good luck to the Ethiopian cops!
BTW: Good luck to the Ethiopian cops!
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It’s been an interesting read…as usual.
Speaking as someone who used to use firearms in the military on anti terrorist ops, I would wholly agree that pilots could be trained to use a simple weapon like a pistol. I do however remember the amount of practice it required to become lethal to our intended targets and not team members and the public. I know you cannot maintain a safe and accurate standard of combat ability by shooting once or twice a year.
When I left the Army and started to shoot competitively in practical pistol and police pistol competitions, I was firing around 1200 rounds a month just to stay good. I was never a champion but my standard was not too embarrassing either. I honestly believe that the vast number of pilots won’t have the inclination or the time to master the art of shooting and thinking at the speed required in a CQB situation. I fully accept that there are more US personnel who can shoot to a very high standard, but adding fear and surprise would reduce that ability to something more mundane. How many employers would be willing to give line pilots the range time needed to maintain that skill?
The only viable solution IMHO is to let dedicated personnel train and serve on A/C throughout the World. They get to train for and maintain the required skills and we don’t have to play “Billy the Kid” or get shot at in the process. It’s got to be a win win situation.
Speaking as someone who used to use firearms in the military on anti terrorist ops, I would wholly agree that pilots could be trained to use a simple weapon like a pistol. I do however remember the amount of practice it required to become lethal to our intended targets and not team members and the public. I know you cannot maintain a safe and accurate standard of combat ability by shooting once or twice a year.
When I left the Army and started to shoot competitively in practical pistol and police pistol competitions, I was firing around 1200 rounds a month just to stay good. I was never a champion but my standard was not too embarrassing either. I honestly believe that the vast number of pilots won’t have the inclination or the time to master the art of shooting and thinking at the speed required in a CQB situation. I fully accept that there are more US personnel who can shoot to a very high standard, but adding fear and surprise would reduce that ability to something more mundane. How many employers would be willing to give line pilots the range time needed to maintain that skill?
The only viable solution IMHO is to let dedicated personnel train and serve on A/C throughout the World. They get to train for and maintain the required skills and we don’t have to play “Billy the Kid” or get shot at in the process. It’s got to be a win win situation.
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Darn, and I had my trusty Sharps 45-70 ready to go. Maybe pop a Buffalo or two during cruse. Also, if we were "packing" we could say goodby to security, or compare guns to see whose was bigger?
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There is a huge commotion in the cabin, screams, fighting, and now someone is trying to break down the cockpit door.
I don't need to be a marksman, or a delta force team member to empty a magazine into the first, second, and third guy that manages to break through any part of the door. This elitist BS about being some sort of trained anti-terrorist expert is a red-herring meant to confuse people who can't think critically. As far as pax or crew being injured inadvertantly . . . does anyone think that an Air Marshall would even hesitate to shoot through a pax if the survival of the aircraft and the lives of maybe thousands on the ground was at stake?? How do you feel about Barney Fife and Mr. Fish Inspector packing iron in the cabin?? How much proficiency and training does Mr. Fish and Game Warden have in close order combat in an aircraft?
The alternative to losing command of the aircraft is mass death of those on-board AND a lot of people on the ground. I'm sure 9-11 would have been MUCH worse off if they had lethal cockpit defense. The lack of common sense with some of you is astounding.
I don't need to be a marksman, or a delta force team member to empty a magazine into the first, second, and third guy that manages to break through any part of the door. This elitist BS about being some sort of trained anti-terrorist expert is a red-herring meant to confuse people who can't think critically. As far as pax or crew being injured inadvertantly . . . does anyone think that an Air Marshall would even hesitate to shoot through a pax if the survival of the aircraft and the lives of maybe thousands on the ground was at stake?? How do you feel about Barney Fife and Mr. Fish Inspector packing iron in the cabin?? How much proficiency and training does Mr. Fish and Game Warden have in close order combat in an aircraft?
The alternative to losing command of the aircraft is mass death of those on-board AND a lot of people on the ground. I'm sure 9-11 would have been MUCH worse off if they had lethal cockpit defense. The lack of common sense with some of you is astounding.
Last edited by Roadtrip; 13th Jun 2002 at 01:42.