There is an article on Worldnetdaily about this.

Don't just write to the airlines. They are subject to FAA policies! Vent your spleen on the FAA!

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See also:

Arabprop: The Propaganda War

It DID Happen Here

The WWII planes were not pressurized. The plane in Hawaii was an older model 737, not a 747, but it was pressurized. There was also a later United 747 which suffered an explosive decompression when a cargo hatch blew open. It collapsed the floor, but the plane returned safely. A few bullet holes are unlikely to be a problem. Occasionally a window blows out and sucks out the adjacent passenger, but otherwise there is no damage. You are entirely right about the pilots carrying arms. However, I suspect what happened last week will not recur. Pilots had been instructed to cooperate when a hijack only meant a diversion to Cuba or similar. Now however they will resist. There is a crash axe in every cockpit. No terrorist with a box knife could come through a narrow cockpit door, one at a time, against a pilot swinging an axe.

TRT Bump

THE ENTIRE EPISODE COULD HAVE BEEN AVERTED HAD EACH OF THOSE PLANES HAD STRONGER COCKPIT DOORS AND THOSE FOUR CAPTAINS HAD CRUMBY $300. PISTOLS IN THEIR FLIGHT BAGS!

WE SIMPLY MUST ASK OUR "LEADERS" WHY THEY DID NOT!!

AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT PLAN, ASK THE SURVIVORS OF THE 5,000 FORMER AMERICANS IF THEY WOULD AGAIN TRADE THEIR LOVED ONES TO APPEASE THE OH-SO DELICATE SENSIBILITIES OF ROSIE O'DONNELL, SARAH BRADY AND THE NUTS AT HANDGUN CONTROL. ANYBODY ELSE WONDER WHY WE HAVEN'T HEARD FROM THEM SINCE 9-11?

As America continues to reel from the catastrophic events of 9/11, we need to rethink a few things:

It’s probably time to train and ARM the cockpit crews of US carriers who agree to the program. Many of the commercial pilots I know are FORMER MILITARY and already have extensive firearms training and experience. Pilots and FOs who do not want the responsibility can be exempted. It was, after all, the folks controlling the aircraft who were the targets on Terrible Tuesday.

During the rash of hijackings of a few decades ago, the feds put armed “AIR MARSHALS” on many flights. While some correctly argued that a fuselage punctured by a bullet at 35,000 feet MIGHT – repeat MIGHT bring the plane down – hijackings fell off.

One thing we know for sure about the four craft hijacked on 9/11: They ALL CAME DOWN and THEY ALL DIED!!

And to those who will inevitably – and stupidly – argue that pilots and FOs just cannot be trusted with the decision about when it’s time to pull a trigger, better tell the up to 400 folks sitting in the back that the guys up front are judgment-impaired!

Personally, I’d prefer to take my chances with a rapid decompression than watch some madman take MY flight into a building or the ground at 500 mph. That was the final experience of 266 fellow humans on 9/11. I KNOW I – like they – won’t survive that!

And pay VERY close attention to the "solutions" being offered by those in government: They are NOT talking about REMOVING the limitations they have ALREADY placed on us as individuals to DEFEND OURSELVES. They are beginning to talk about FURTHER RESTRICTIONS on our liberties and MORE GOVERNMENT! More GOVERNMENT? The same GOVERNMENT that failed so miserably in its obligation to protect citizens that 5,000 of them died like cattle in a slaughterhouse on September 11th? THAT GOVERNMENT?? </font color=red>

It’s again the old, old story: There aren’t TOO many weapons out there. It’s that the touchy-feely, warm-fuzzy PC crowd now sees to it that all too frequently, THE WRONG PEOPLE HAVE THEM!

Did you see this? Did Gore ignore airline safety for airline $$$$$,DNC election '96

I have seen several news stories on how gun sales have gone up, with many gun shops reporting a tripling of sales from this time last year. I also would like to see if there hase been a similar increase in CCW permits in the states that allow them. I know 4 people personally that were teetering on the edge of getting one, and now have decided full bore towards getting one now. It would be an interesting tidbit of info.

Mega-bump.

Yes, absolutely!

Copy the exact solution used by the Israelis and their airline, El Al.

We trust these men (and women) with our lives and with $100 million aircraft. I think we can trust them with a $300 9mm.

P.S.YES!!

(At least as long as no pilots "GO POSTAL.")

Agreed. I posted previously on another thread that most pilots are ex-military and some are Vietnam veterans. Anyone who thinks these guys don't know how to shoot a gun is living in Rosie O'Donnell land.

Now hear this, FAA...authorize our pilots who currently possess concealed-carry permits to carry their weapon on board and have it on their person at all times, no apologies, no exceptions! Better yet, issue them!

Consider this: it is not just human life that is the pilot's responsibility: it is the PLANE itself. Getting it up in the air and landing it safely is the first and last priority!

Also, flight attendants should be required to take basic self-defense classes as part of their training.

Personally, locking cabin doors and arming pilots strikes me as a strange combination. Are they going to shoot through the locked door at whatever's on the other side?

Arming the passengers seems like the ultimate solution — The prospect of having perhaps a dozen armed passengers on any given flight (the identities of which would not be apparent to hijackers) would be a serious deterrrent to air piracy.

As to bullet holes causing serious damage, this is mostly an urban myth. Modern jets are pressurized with turbines on the engines, and the cabin pressure is controlled by automatic outflow valves that continuously vent stale air to the outside of the plane. A bullet hole simply provides an additional exit point for this air, which the outflow valves would promptly compensate for by venting slightly less air. According to The Proficient Pilot II by Barry Schiff, "the ouflow valves are so large that the loss of an entire cabin window may not affect cabin pressure significantly. (It would not be pleasant, however, to be seated next to such a window.)"

(Previous thread on this subject HERE.)

Added to bang_list. (Click HERE to show most gun-related articles recently posted on FreeRepublic.com.)

Personally, locking cabin doors and arming pilots strikes me as a strange combination. Are they going to shoot through the locked door at whatever's on the other side?

Ask the guys at El Al. It's been their policy for years.

Maybe if the government had put sky marshals on the aircraft to fight sky rage none of this would have. Or they could bring back the position of a first officer as navigator / engineer /guard. The purpose of a pilot is to safely operate the aircraft.

I saw the former head of security for El Al Airline on TV this weekend, pointing out the security measures it has that have been 100% successful in preventing any hijacking or any plane bombing, ever. Armed pilots and a solid door protecting the cockpit -- which is NEVER to be opened in flight REGARDLESS of what happens in the passenger cabin. The sad fact is, I saw the same man, when he was the active head of security, say the same things about American airline security 20 years ago. Also, El AL has armed marshals in civilian clothes on EVERY flight.

5,000 lives and billions of dollars in damages are the price we have just paid to learn that lesson. With El Al-type security measures, there would be no problem with reopening Reagan National Airport. So the take-off pattern of Reagan National is minutes from critical targets in D.C. So what? If no terrorist can get near the controls or the pilots, the plane itself could never become a weapon. At very worst, it would crash in rural Maryland or Virginia, as did Flight 93 outside Pittsburgh in rural Pennsylvania.

This is a no-brianer. Of course the pilots -- almost all of them ex-military -- should have sidearms. Of course the cockpit doors should be steel. Of course there chould be sky marshals on every plane that can carry, say, 90 passengers or more. I fly a lot. $5 more on everyone's ticket price will pay the cost of the marshal, the doors, and the sidearms for the pilots.

This would not, of course, end the possibility of terrorism. But it would foreclose this particular type of terrorism. We SHOULD do this. It should be a condition of the admittedly necessary bailout of the airlines from the ground stop of last week.

The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob,
cyberCongressman from Western Carolina

Click here for Billybob's latest, "The Engineering (and Law) of War."

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Ask the guys at El Al. It's been their policy for years.

Since this thread doesn't seem to have any guys from El Al on it (and since no one here has answered the question), I'll ask it again: What's the point of putting armed pilots behind a locked (and apparently, in the case of El Al planes, hardened steel) door?

A .45 cal. firearm using subsonic ammo has plenty of stopping power and will not penetrate the skin of the airframe or go thru more than one person. A 9mm may penetrate the intended target and anyone behind.