04-20-2003, 10:10 AM
|
#1 (permalink)
|
|
Loser
Location: who the fuck cares?
|
First Airline Pilots to Carry Guns
First Airline Pilots to Carry Guns
by Leslie Miller
April 20, 2003
The Associated Press
Quote:
GLYNCO, Ga. (April 20) - There is a minuscule chance, beginning Sunday, that a pilot on a commercial flight may be carrying a gun. Some air travelers say even those odds are cause for worry. Others say they will feel safer if there's an armed pilot on board.
Saturday was graduation day for the first 44 pilots in a course at a federal law enforcement training center. Additional pilots will complete their training in the weeks to come - meaning a gradual increase in the number of gun-toting pilots in airliner cockpits.
The pilots went through a week of classes, tests, drills and target practice required before they could be sworn in as federal flight deck officers. The designation is required for a pilot to carry a pistol.
Cafe owner Peter Fragale of Jacksonville, Fla., thinks arming pilots is a good idea.
"They make me feel better,'' he said as he waited at Jacksonville International Airport for a flight to Atlanta.
"They should all have guns,'' Fragale said. "It's that last layer, that last-resort layer, in case the terrorists get through all this security,'' he said, gesturing toward uniformed federal screeners. "And they will.''
Art teacher Mary Ellen Binz, returning to Lake Mills, Wis., said putting guns in the hands of pilots makes her nervous.
"It'll get in the hands of the wrong person,'' she said. "I wonder how pilots feel about it?''
Polls last year showed more than 70 percent of pilots favored the right to be armed. After the hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, pilots' unions lobbied for permission to carry guns in the cockpit. Opposing the idea were the White House and the airlines.
"I need to defend myself and my aircraft,'' a female pilot said Thursday during a break from practicing how to disarm a terrorist in close quarters. Participants in the course were not allowed to give their names or airlines.
Graduates are required to tell their employers that they have been certified to carry a gun 24 hours after they finish training. They do not have to take a weapon with them every time they fly, but they do have to inform airlines and the flight crew when they do. Passengers are not supposed to know if a pilot is armed.
More pilots are to be trained this summer, though the size of the group is uncertain.
Capt. Fred Bates, an American Airlines pilot who helped put the program in place, said as many as one in three U.S. pilots - about 30,000 - could be carrying weapons on the flight deck in five years.
Not all pilots who want to carry guns will be able to. They have to volunteer for the program, pass background checks and psychological tests and make it through a week of rigorous drills.
"This is brutal,'' a trainee, a male pilot, said after fighting off another pilot pretending to be a terrorist.
The pilot trainees, pitted against one another, thrashed and grunted with dummy pistols in a padded room. Instructors yelled out rapid-fire orders on how to fight attackers: "Get your hands on there, lower your center!''
Some pilots expressed little interest in the program. A pilot for Midway Airlines, who had just flown into Washington, said he viewed the training more as a way to make the public feel safer rather than actually making it tougher for attackers to take over a plane.
Pilots are not pleased about restrictions on carrying their government-issued .40-caliber semiautomatic pistols.
When pilots go through the airport to their plane, the guns must be in a locked case enclosed in a nondescript bag. Pilots can wear the gun in a holster while they are in the cockpit, but if they leave - to use the bathroom, for example - they must stow the weapon in a lockbox in the cockpit.
Pilots say they would like to be able to have the gun in a holster when they walk through the airport.
|
What do you think? Is this a good move? Would you feel safer on the plane knowing your pilot was packing heat?
|
|
|