Alan Reynolds is a Cato Institute senior fellow.

And a Senior Idiot too! First and best step would be to allow, not necessarily mandate, the pilots to be armed. Most of 'em are ex military, and should have some familiarity with handguns. Think of Scot O'Grady emerging from the woods with his M-92 in hand. Frangible ammunition, like MagSafe and CorBon, would of course be required.

The vault door idea has been examined and found wanting due to pressurization issues, (actually depresurrization) Older aircraft often had sturdier doors, but then needed blowout pannels, eliminating the security advantage.

Sturdy doors seem the best answer. "Vault doors" aren't necessary, just ones strong enough to keep people out and with a peep hole, just like your average urban apartment. Allowing the pilot to have a pistol might be a good idea but if hijackers can just walk in the cock-pit and slit his throat, he wouldn't have much time to use it.

ChannelNewsAsia.com. They have a forum that is now tilting anti-American.

want hi-jack proof airplanes? kill all the hi-jackers

Back in the late 1970's I worked in the cop shop business. A sales rep from Avco came out and showed up their new line of ceramic/Kevlar body armor. He said that Avco was the contractor that made cockpit bulkheads and doors for El Al aircraft, to keep hijackers out of the cockpit even if they had grenades. Ceramic/Kevlar armor has been used for the last 30 years to build armored limos and aircraft parts. The technology has been freely available, but is rather expensive. I don't know what current cockpit doors are made of, or what airline doctrine is when the bad boys demand entrance and say they have explosives, guns, etc. I suspect the doctrine is financially driven - don't do *anything* that might injure a passenger and cause multimillion dollar lawsuits. Obviously, if the hijackers are just about the only ones up and walking around, and you start putting the plane through some violent roller coaster moves, they aren't going to be able to do anything except bounce off the ceiling. When the action stops, the passengers who managed to strap in have a chance to stomp heads. Would passengers get hurt, you bet. Would the plane get taken over or go down, not likely. Every important decision on every issue that surfaces is made by sheeple, and is almost always financially driven. The rest of the bad PC decisions made are socialistic in nature. Airline pilots deliberately injuring passengers - horrors!! Airline passengers inflicting violence on suicidal hijackers - gasp choke guuhhhh................

Minimal requirements could include having the pilot put his finger on a pad to check the fingerprint

Since of course hijackers would be too stupid to just cut off a pilot's finger... give me a break.

Want to make airplanes hijack prrof?

Eliminate the hijackers.

Didnt see your post. Great miinds, and all that ;)