Quote:
Originally posted by jaguar
I think the least disputed issue here is that plane security should be boosted up. Cabin doors should be bulletproof and have peepholes and pilots armed with beanbag ammo shotguns or something else non-hull piercing.
|
As I pilot, I have been hearing a lot of the conversation about flight security (BTW, small planes are STILL not allowed to fly -- we expect to hear from the FAA on that issue today.) and the concept of making the cockpit doors relatively impenetrable
has been a point that has been brought up repeatedly.
The problem in this case, though, does not seem to be that the door was forced. It was that the pilots responded to threats of passanger's lives by opening the cabin doors. My guess is that they had NO idea that (a) the terrorists knew how to fly and (b) that they intended to use the planes as missles.
Note that, as well as it can be pieced together, the Pennsylvania plane's occupants, one they became aware (via cellphone) of the probable plans, decided to forcably attempt to retake the plane even if it meant their lives -- which it apparently did.
These men were apparently armed with nothing more than a few knives and a box that they claimed was a bomb (which it apparently was not). If the passangers and crew had ANY idea that these men were going to kill them all EVEN IF they cooperated, I don't think they would have successfully taken the plane.
The only reason they succeeded was that the passangers thought that some of them might come out of this hijacking alive and the crew probably wanted to save as many lives as possible.
From this day forward, I think we will view the passangers' lives as the
secondary goal. The first will be to prevent the plane from being used as a fire-bomb missle.