Now that passengers are willing to resist and even kill troublemakers in the cabin, and now that pilots are sealed into their cockpits and inaccessible from the cabin, Al-Qaeda has developed a new strategy - pilot impersonation.
Rather clever - I hope the authorities learn quickly from this new development and takes steps to neutralize this tactic.
Numerous times I have been on flights where the pilot and flight crew were running late, and when they arrived they just ran right onboard with minimal hassle.,p>Perhaps he was hoping on just that kind of lax scrutiny.
I always thought it was crazy to make the cockpits impregnable for the very reason you mention.
Also, a year or so before 9/11 there was an Egyptian passenger plane that did a nosedive into the ocean right off the coast of New York, with the pilot forcing the plane into the ocean. Some theorized that the pilot was supposed to crash into a NYC target, but instead, forced his plane into the ocean.
In our country, almost every airport calls itself an "International" Airport, accepting flights that originate from foreign countries. Some of these airports are pretty deep inside our borders and the direct flights from overseas to these airports pass over vast areas of our country.
These flights come in on airlines from Egypt and Pakistan, and it worries me that a fanatic pilot could kill his cockpit crew (and while safely behind his impregnable cockpit door) pilot his plane into a nuclear or chemical plant.