US airline pilots get guns

tkl

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PhotonBoy

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Should be interesting in the next 18 months or so to see what happens. If terrorists start targeting non-US airlines, it won't be long before they get them too.

Soon after that, we might see: "Shootout on Flight 123" instead of "Gunfight at the OK Corral".

Things have changed a lot. I can remember lining up to board a plane at Halifax International Airport in 1964. It was as simple as getting on a bus.
 

Tombeis

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If we had armed our airline pilots over twenty years ago when the Isrealies armed their pilots, there would have never been a 9/11.

It is about time.
 

MichiganMan

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Yeah, what was the lifespan of that nut who tried shooting up the El-Al terminal at LAX, something like literally 10 seconds after he got his first shot off? Those are some serious folks.
 

paulr

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I hadn't heard Israeli pilots were armed. I had heard that they completely lock the (very solid) cockpit door in flight, so it can only be unlocked on the ground (pilots can't even open it, so threatening to shoot passengers won't get hijackers into the cockpit). That of course means the cockpit needs its own lavatory, which uses up space on the plane that could have produced revenue, so US carriers have resisted this kind of measure.
 

tkl

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[ QUOTE ]
MichiganMan said:
Yeah, what was the lifespan of that nut who tried shooting up the El-Al terminal at LAX, something like literally 10 seconds after he got his first shot off? Those are some serious folks.

[/ QUOTE ]

exactly, EL-AL was armed amongst the sheeple and took him down before a slaughter. when will people get it?
 

Unicorn

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I can't stand the twits who are opposed to arming of pilots. For the pilot to use his/her gun, the terrorist would have to get past the flight attendants, any FAM's that MIGHT happen to be on-board, any passengers who want to live, then through the (finally) reinforced cockpit door. It's not as if the pilot is going to leave the cockpit and go after them himself. What is the better choice? Giving a pilot a easy to use revolver loaded with some rounds that are low penetration (another hole in the skin of the plane wouldn't really matter anyway), or forcing an F16 pilot to shoot down a 747 with 300 passengers on board?
 

Graham

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Wouldn't even have to open the cockpit door to use that thing..
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tsg68

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The vast majority of U.S. airline pilots are former military pilots who had to carry sidearms as a matter of course when they were in the military as part of their survival kit so what would be the big deal now? I love the Idea!!

later,
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FalconFX

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It's about time they were armed. It's also about time the cabin was bulletproof... Arming the pilots are about the next best thing to having an Air Marshall in the plane.
 

Blikbok

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Remember, though, the pilots are not supposed to exit the cockpit and engage the threats in the cabin -- AKA "death tube". It's a last-ditch resource to ensure the pilots are not killed and the airplane hijacked.
 

guncollector

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I was reminded and informed recently that US pilots routinely carried firearms onboard flights as recently as the--IIRC--1970's.

So, it seems that we're simply rearming the pilots, who should've never been disarmed to begin with.
 

iddibhai

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[ QUOTE ]
Blikbok said:
Remember, though, the pilots are not supposed to exit the cockpit and engage the threats in the cabin -- AKA "death tube". It's a last-ditch resource to ensure the pilots are not killed and the airplane hijacked.



[/ QUOTE ]

yea, but the idiots who plan to take over generally don't know that. just the idea that the pilot might be packing would hopefully deter them.

i keep thinking of the james bond scenes from goldfinger, one of my fav movies, 'bout ms. p galore with a large calibre revolver in flight, and sean warns her that shooting him at altitude would be disastrous for her and the aircraft /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

guncollector

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[ QUOTE ]
iddibihai writes:
i keep thinking of the james bond scenes from goldfinger, one of my fav movies, 'bout ms. p galore with a large calibre revolver in flight, and sean warns her that shooting him at altitude would be disastrous for her and the aircraft

[/ QUOTE ]
Y'know, I wonder if the general public realizes that most commercial airliners are fairly "leaky" as is. Sure, the cabin is constantly pressurized, but it nowhere near hermetically sealed.

Furthermore, I wonder if they realize that the a single bullet hole, or even a dozen or more so, would not cause the drastic Hollywood-fictionalized rapid depressurization--with whole portion of the fuselage tearing off and passengers getting sucked into the void.

Anybody remember a few years back the Hawaiian Air--or was it Aloha Air--passenger jet that had a significant portion of its fuselage torn away (with some fatalities) and yet remained air worthy enough to fly and emergency land?

I heard an interview with the heads of the one of the Airline pilot's groups, saying that the myth of a catastrphic bullet-penetration-caused depressurization was one they intentionally promoted over the years merely to deter terrorists and hijackers.
 

iddibhai

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thanks for the info. always wondered how much overdone that press. diff was re. catastrophic failure /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

Kristofg

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Are there actually any rules for pilots how they should behave in a hijacking situation? Should they negotiate, never give in to demands or try to land or something like that or is it basically left to them to do as they see fit?
 

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