I've been trying to find a site that actually deals with this, and am open to suggestions. I have been reading with interest on the subject of pilots with guns or tazars. Does anyone think it could be feasible to retrofit planes so that the cockpit is totally inaccessable to passengers? Pilots enter through a front door? We've already witnessed that they can exit the plane rapidly through the windows. Totally block off with bullet proof steel (or whatever - I'm not an engineer) any entrance to the cabin? (And put a toilet and snacks up there for the pilots?) It wouldn't stop someone with a bomb, but it would stop people trying to ram a building. I think we need to keep the pilots totally away from the passengers. I'm sure greater minds have thought this through, but when they are talking about arming pilots, (and when you shoot a gun in the plane, doesn't it decompress the air and people die anyway?) and the money that is being spent on our home security, that is being spent on guns and retrofitting bar lock doors on entry to the cabin, any more expensive then retrofitting our planes with front doors for the pilots and no access for passengers? If anyone knows of a site that this is being discussed, I would appriciate a link. Thanks.<P>Deb<BR>

Hi Deb - I watched with interest yesterday, or the day before, when a pilots union announced the desire to arm pilots with guns.<P>What a stupid idea - IMHO. Stun guns, maybe, mace, definitely, butter knives, why not?<P>Disclaimer: I am not a gun owner, a security expert, or a pilot.<P>Anyway, apparently El Al has inaccessible cockpits in their planes. Makes a lot of sense to me.<P>Dave

I've also heard that El Al has better cockpit security and that seems like a great idea. There were some letters just like this in the Pittsburgh paper a couple days after the attacks. It would be expensive but certainly worthwhile in comparison to some of the other options. Maybe they could do it with a system of double doors of equal security, one between the cockpit and the galley, and one between galley and cabin. Only one can be open. That way the pilots can get at the toilet, food, and coffee without wholesale remodeling. I've never been on El Al and I don't know how they've done it. I'm not the right kind of engineer to know, but I'm not sure it's feasible to just cut another exterior door in the fuselage for the pilots.<P>I'm not comfortable with arming the pilots, either. Also I don't think the air marshals will be a cure-all, plus they will be very expensive. The Israelis fly a lot of international flights where the higher fares can support air marshals. I'm not sure how much domestic traffic they have. There has to be a last line of defense on the plane, but I don't think guns are necessarily part of it.<P>I flew one segment of an attempted Pittsburgh-Japan trip on September 14. It struck me that with all the changes and delays in the Pittsburgh and Chicago airports, nothing at all had been done yet for the plane itself.<P>- Tom

I heard yesterday that a standard procedure for commercial flights was to allow any pilots on board the plane (as passengers) to sit in the jump seat in the cockpit with the pilots flying the plane. <P>At least one of the terrorists was posing as a pilot and IN the cockpit prior to take off. <P>When the FAA grounded all airplanes the day of the attacks, there were 12 men (pilots) of Middle Eastern descent sitting in the jump seats of 12 commercial airplanes.<P>We know now that the fact of a person being a pilot, does not necessarily make them 'safe' to be in the cockpit., <P>More than just doors, and sky marshalls, and plastic plates and higher paid better treated security personel, there has to be an overhall of the whole system., <P> <p>[This message has been edited by BrownEyedGirl (edited September 26, 2001).]

I would argue that hijacking as we know it has changed forever. Americans now realize that hijackers may have no intention of safely landing anywhere, to say nothing of keeping the passengers safe as hostages. <P>Like the passengers on the plane that went down in PA, I would suspect that the next attempted hijacking will be met by tough resistance from the passengers. Can a few guys with knives hold off 60 or 70 angry Americans with nothing to lose?

Yo cjack, how ya doin'?<P>My thoughts exactly.<P>No doubt the passengers in the WTC and Pentagon planes thought they'd be held hostage for some political statement and would have to just be quiet and spend a day or so on some foreign runway eating airline food.<P>Never again.<P>WAT

Exactly... And those people who just want to go to Cuba, or get someone released, better think twice. It will never happen again. If things hadn't happened so simutaneously and so quickly, other passengers on the other planes would have been able to figure it out. They are all heroes to me, no matter what plane they were on. It breaks my heart. But, who would have ever thought? The insanity...