Pilots Want More Guns in Cockpits Faster (TSA Dragging Feet)

[RamboLiberal]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030826_1141.html

The government says its training program to arm commercial airline pilots is now at full capacity and it expects to train all qualified pilots who volunteer to carry guns within a year.

Pilots disagree, saying the Transportation Security Administration, is discouraging them from signing up by requiring background and psychological checks, ordering pilots to carry guns in lockboxes and holding the training at a single remote site.

--snip--

Full classes of 48 each are booked through the end of September, he said, and the agency plans to double its classes in January.

Another member of the pilots security group, Capt. Phillip Beall, says 10,000 of his fellow airline pilots should have been given guns by now and trained to use them while in the cockpit. Instead, he said, fewer than 200 have weapons because the agency in charge of arming pilots is dragging its feet.

[Noordam]

1. Would you give this guy a GUN.

Members of pilots industry associations take questions during a press conference at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va. on Tuesday, August 26, 2003. From left are Capt. Bob Lambert, president of Airline Pilots Security Alliance, Capt. James Shilling, legislative liaison for the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, CAPA, Dr. John Lott, resident scholar at the American Enterprise (news - web sites) Institute and an expert on concealed weapons and Capt. John Safely, president of CAPA. The pilots' organizations say the Transportation Security Administration is discouraging them from signing up for its training program to arm commercial airline pilots by requiring background and psychological checks, ordering pilots to carry guns in lockboxes and holding the training at a single remote site. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

[slackmaster]

6. If I'd get on a plane he was flying, I'd certainly let him have a gun

:shrug:

[Tinfoil]

9. exactly..

Why not? If a pilot wants to kill you, it's a done deal. As far as "it's their job to fly the plane", well no, that's not true. Their job is to ensure the safety of the flight and they are ULTIMATELY responsible for it. This, to me, includes keeping control of the aircraft in a takeover situation.

I cannot see how having a firearm in the cockpit will hurt anything or change the outcome of a terrorist attack into something WORSE than what would have happened without the presence of a firearm in the cockpit.

[damnraddem]

2. Why not supply them with hand grenades? Atomic bombs?

Why not just mount machine guns in the cockpit? Or howitzers?

Hey, all they really need is a little red button that says 'self destruct.'

[slackmaster]

7. How about a security guard uniform stuffed with straw instead?

Get real.

[0007]

8. I was gonna say the same thing

Do the air marshalls ride on the planes anymore or did they ever?

[NickB79]

10. Oh yeah

Heaven forbid they have a fighting chance if there ever were a take-over situation again. "Well folks, we're facing 3 guys with boxcutters, let's blow ourselves up!"

[realFedUp]

3. With CAPPS 2 and drunk pilots armed

I'm taking the train.

[KDLarsen]

4. Since I'm not a pilot..

.. I can't really add too much, however, I'll point to these two other boards where the same matter is being discussed:

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/1173978/

&

EDIT: Looks like the site is out - try entering via www.pprune.org and look through their forum.

The latter site is mainly used by real world pilots & people working in all areas of the aviation industry (caterers, Air traffic control etc). Do note the warning at the bottom of the site, since comments there has been printed in newspapers without written consent!

[CaptainMidnight]

5. smoking gun?

Apparently, up until just two months before 9-11, pilots were indeed, officially or unofficially, allowed to have a firearm in the cockpit of commercial airliners. Then a regulation was put in place where they couldn't.

I'm trying to find where I read this. But I'm wondering if this is in the same category as the Air Force suddenly grounding record numbers of "scramble-ready" planes just before 9-11.

If you do your research, Even Richard Myers admitted, before his confirmation hearings, that NO planes were scrambled for 90 minutes to protect the most protected airspace in the world. And even so, when they finally were, the were scramble from Langely, some 120 miles away, and from Otis, in Cape Cod, some 200 miles away, but NOT from Andrews, which is where Air Force One is based, and only 6 miles away.

Information and "evidence" regarding all sortsa 9-11 theories abound, but I do think, at the very least, our government purposely left the back door open...

Captain Mike