Obama administration's plan to cut back pilot firearm training raises security concerns

fox ^ | 3/23/12 | Catherine Herridge

[Nachum]

Pilots packing heat may soon be a relic of the 9/11 aftermath, as the White House seeks to cut the $25 million budget in half for the federal flight deck officers training program known as the FFDO.

“The Obama administration has had an institutional hostility towards the concept of arming pilots, and especially the FFDO program, since the beginning,” Lt. Col. Al Aitken, a retired Marine and now with the Airline Security Consulting Group, claimed at a panel hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation on Friday.

The panel brought together advocates for the voluntary program that trains pilots, co-pilots and navigators to handle and carry handguns, including Minnesota Republican Rep. Chip Craavack. He said the program was cost effective – in fact, it was cheaper to arm a pilot than check a single suitcase.

“According to the estimates by the Airlines Pilots Association, FFDOs only cost $15 per flight segment. Let me say that again: To protect an aircraft and possibly the potential of thousands of people, the FFDO costs $15 per flight.

Capt. Tracy W. Price, a commercial airline pilot, warned that history might repeat itself -- he recalled that pilots carried handguns in the 80s and 90s, but the program was shuttered the summer before 9/11.

[GlockThe Vote]

Both for NWO
Both for amnesty for illegals
Both fiscal socialists and keynsians.
Both owned by goldman Sachs
Both for the patriot act and police state
Both bailed out the wall street mafia
Both beholden to. The house of SAUD
Both devaluing the dollar

Etc etc

[QBFimi]

What a joke this administration has become. If the traveling public had any idea of how few flights will be covered after the elimination of the FFDO program, they’d descend on the local airports with pitchforks in hand.

FFDOs do this all without compensation, commonly traveling halfway across the country to initial or recurrent training. And for practice on their own, it was not uncommon to spend from $500 to $1000 per year on ammo and range fees.