Letter to the Editor, Wall Street Journal, 9/21/01

As We Become Sheep, Wolves Will Eat Us

I’m an American Airlines captain. How utterly absurd that thousands can be murdered with boxcutters. The airport security procedures mandated since Sept. 11 wouldn’t have prevented it, and won’t deter it from happening again. They don’t do much but inconvenience passengers and increase costs. And now every copy-cat crazy in the world knows how much damage can be done with an airplane. Pilots aren’t allowed to carry so much as a Swiss Army knife any longer, but an Internet search for ceramic and composite knives will show what terrorists can still easily smuggle aboard an aircraft. What are we supposed to do then, hit them with our purses?

I’m told by my airline’s flight office that the FAA feels pilots shouldn’t have weapons because “they might be taken away and used.” Well, what if our airplanes are taken away and used? If we make ourselves helpless, we’ve already done half a terrorist’s work for him. At the funeral of John Oganowski (the captain of American Airlines flight 11), I spoke with other pilots who have sharpened their belt-buckles, screwdrivers, pens, etc., so that they might have a prayer of defending their $30 million jets from guys with boxcutters.

An emphasis on prevention is of course necessary, but we can never be sure that every airport ramp worker, baggage handler, caterer, mechanic and refueler is trustworthy. We need a last line of defense to keep hijackers out of the cockpit. Federal agents from even the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Department of Agriculture, Department of Education and the Smithsonian Institution are allowed to carry guns on commercial airlines. Why not the pilots who are responsible for the aircraft? Many of us already have better firearms training than that provided to those agencies – and we’re willing to get more at our own expense.

I believe that hardened cockpit doors and armed pilots could have prevented all four of those hijackings. Make some of us sky marshals. How much more cost-effective could a security program be? At the very least, let us carry pocket knives again. As Benjamin Franklin said, “If you make yourselves sheep, the wolves will eat you.”

Brad Rohdenberg

Captain

American Airlines

Meredith, N.H.

-- Eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), September 21, 2001

Answers

Looks like our own government's got blood on their hands as well.

-- Eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), September 21, 2001.

You're right. Cockpits should have secure doors. There should be a mirror to show who wants to get in. And pilots should carry protection.

-- John Littmann (johntl@mtn.org), September 21, 2001.

Eve:

Oh joy. Just what I want. Hurdling along at 37,000 ft in a metal tube, held together by the internal air pressure and including an unqualified person with a side arm. Sure am looking forward to that.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 21, 2001.

I like the Israeli airlines solution:

The passageway to the cockpit (why do they call it that, anyway? What exactly are you guys doing up there while those stewardess's are delivering those yummy meals up to you in that place?) actually has two doors. The first door is formidable, but not impregnable. A good terrorist worth his salt will manage to blast his way through it, eventually.

Beond lies a second door, very similar to that on the federal gold repository vault at Ft. Knox. As the would-be terrorist steps up to this new and unanticipated barrier, he is instantly nerve gassed, blasted to bits with claymore mines, the resulting pink mist is incinerated by modified cremetorium gas-plasma jets, and the resulting smoke is irradiated with a gamma rays and neutron beams, and, finally, what remains is vented outside the plane by high volume air evacuation pumps.

They don't get too many hijackings over there.

-- Zzzzz (asleep@the.wheel), September 21, 2001.

Locked cockpit doors, video cameras, and knockout gas for the rest of the plane.

-- (this@is.debatable), September 21, 2001.

Zzzzz:

No problem with your analysis. I have flown on the airline. But think about it. Israel wouldn't be large enough to make a small state. Hell, western Europe would only make a couple of large states. Their airline is tiny. Could we do that; sure. It would take years and years and cost a bundle. What Eve said is that we should let unqualified people carry guns on planes. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 21, 2001.

Pilots? Shouldn't they be busy driving the plane?

Rather, just behind the lowered trays, insert a defensive weapon in certain seatbacks- ensure passengers seated there are willing, just as you do for exit row seating. Voila, no more surviving hijackers.

-- OKCrackerby (Citizens@ResponsibleFor.Ourselves), September 21, 2001.

Z,

Would you think it possible that if the crew had had SOME kind of protection (pepper spray, knives, tasers, guns, you name it), the tragedy might have been averted or at least lessened? Also, who said anything about them not being trained? I certainly didn't.

-- Eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), September 21, 2001.

I have to agree totally with Brad Rohdenberg. Weapons qualification is easy. You can teach a person to fire a gun in two minutes. To educate them on all those "good-to-know" issues that go along with it, and might apply specifically to shooting people in an aircraft, one you're supposed to be flying, no less, would probably take an afternoon, followed by an hour or two of familiarization on the shooting range. This isn't Einstein's Grand Unification Theory we're talking about here - it's about looking at your video monitor to see who's outside your door, unholstering your weapon, and saying your prayers as you prepare to do your very best to save hundreds of innocent lives. The ranges we're talking about are just a few feet, you don't have to be an expert marksman.

-- Zzzzz (asleep@the.wheel), September 21, 2001.

I know a cheaper way,=handcuff ALL passengers until your over the ocean.

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), September 21, 2001.

It would be racist and provocative to allow airlines personnel to "protect" themselves and the general public. How do we know that armed pilots would not be CIA agents?

We must be willing to accept further attacks in order to show the world our good will and to atone for our past evilness. We Americans are the oppressors. We must do deadly penance.

Wearing my hairshirt,

Tom

-- (Tom J Wright @ motel.6), September 21, 2001.

And pilots should carry protection.

-- John Littmann (johntl@mtn.org), September 21, 2001.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- I understand that stewardesses are also in fovor of this program.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 21, 2001.

Z:

I had no idea your anti-gun religion was so bogglingly inflexible. You are saying, in no uncertain terms, that rather than equip an "unqualified" (undefined, of course) pilot with *any* ability to defend himself effectively, you're willing to lose whole planes, world trade centers, and whatever else terrorists are willing to fly those planes into. You have argued twice now that you find mass murder preferable to any policy to (gasp!) arm pilots.

When it's pointed out to you that airlines sane enough to permit effective countermeasures have a perfect record against hijacking, and an equally perfect record of these "unqualified" pilots never just kind of randomly shooting people (or whatever it is your religion nominally fears), you argue that those records don't count because the responsible states are too small or some other non- sequitur. Quite obviously, ANY excuse, however silly or inapplicable, is enough to satisfy someone whose prejudice is sufficiently strong and irrational.

What's most remarkable is that although you paint yourself as a scientist, you toss any respect for evidence out the window the instant your dogma is questioned. Track record? analysis? case studies? All irrelevant, right? The Z Bible says "guns are always bad, period." And the Bible is NOT to be questioned.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, one single gun snuck aboard by even the least "qualified" passenger would have saved thousands of lives. And the only reason those lives were not saved is because of the "zero-reasonableness" policy you worship. If we really want to know why and how this all happened, we need look no further.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 21, 2001.

Flint:

You are a technical person. Read a bit about airliner construction.

They are training folks to carry-out this task. They will be fine in the job. The problem is not guns on airplanes. It is people with guns on airplanes who know "what the hell'" they are doing with the guns.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 21, 2001.

Well said Flint. Heavens to Betsy you got Boswell on your side! I've talked to the FAA twice this week and I asked all these questions. The marshalls will be armed with composite bullets that penetrate and kill a hijacker but they won't go thru a bulkhead or skin and decompress rapidly an airplane. As a commercial pilot myself, not air transport though, I wouldn't even think twice about arming myself. I'd pack speed loaders and extra clips too! Kevlar bulkheads and doors behind the flight deck would do the trick. Give the stewardesses a fighting chance also with peppar spray or something to make them diaper heads piss their pants. And Z, you're full of shit right up to your eyebrows. You certainly wouldn't be one of them BRAVE passengers on that Pittsburgh flight that said LET'S ROLL. God I hate cowards!

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), September 21, 2001.

Z:

Yes, I know about airplane pressurization. I don't know exactly how fast that pressure would be lost in case of a bullethole. I doubt you know either, since I don't remember any opportunity to learn by doing, even in the old and terrifying days when people were permitted to carry handguns on airplanes and nobody ever checked. Nobody ever shot them, either.

You seem of the opinion that if people were armed, there would be a more or less nonstop public gunbattle occurring among all the gun- totin' ignoramuses that surround you. The fact that such an event never happened on an airplane doesn't seem to register with you. The fact that you are surrounded every day by armed people with nary a gun battle doesn't seem to register either. You know guns is bad, they shorely is. By definition. Therefore there will be gunfights. The fact that there are not, while inconvenient, doesn't seem salient.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 21, 2001.

Flint,

I read a pretty good analysis by a couple of aircraft engineers just last night. If someone were to shoot out a window, you would need the oxygen masks and it would be unpleasant until the plane got to a lower altitude (which the pilot is required to do the instant pressure is lost).

If someone were to shoot a few bulletholes through the fuselage, the passengers wouldn't even notice the pressure drop. The on-board pressurization system would be able to handle it, because airplanes aren't 100% air-tight NOW. There are already small leaks.

These guys flatly stated that the odds of explosive decompression were virtually nil. There HAVE been many incidents already of planes suffering cracks, fissures and other large leaks, and it's as described for the first case: the oxygen masks would drop and people would be very uncomfortable until the plane got down under 10,000 feet. But aside from that, no real harm done.

I would support arming pilots. To satisfy everyone's fears, require them to take a training course and be certified.

-- Stephen M. Poole (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), September 21, 2001.

How about tasers for the rest of the crew?

-- flora (****@__._), September 21, 2001.

Stephen:

Thanks. I didn't know exactly what the danger was, but I knew that whole sections had blown off airplanes, and those not blown out immediately, survived the experience of depressurization.

What I've been trying to say is that Z's fears are not based on *either* the danger of bulletholes in the fuselage, *or* on the near- zero measured probability that armed passengers or crew would actually start shooting in anything short of a hijacking emergency. Instead, Z's concerns are purely political -- that ANY advantages of being armed, no matter how clearly they may be shoved in his face and no matter how incredibly costly the LACK of being armed is demonstrated to be, cannot be admitted. Admitting ANY advantage to being armed is simply politically impermissible. Much better to let many thousands die than to admit this error.

And so we find him concocting concerns that don't even constitute flimsy straws to grasp at, and finding those concerns sufficient not because they are within light years of being sufficient, but because Z starts with his definitions and forces his reality to fit. Quite surprisingly, he self-ratifies his political dogma *despite* any and all evidence to the contrary. And I continue to be surprised that someone in his profession would so readily discard all evidence so as to retain political preconceptions. Kind of sad, when you realize that the mark of a true scientist is the ability (and willingness) to admit error when the error becomes obvious. Z is a fraud.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 21, 2001.

Flint,

By the way, that "uncomfortable" and "no harm done" should be qualified; you would have some ruptured eardrums, bends and things like that. That's actually a bit more than "uncomfortable." But, as you point out, that's preferable to dying -- especially in this case, where you know that, not only will YOU die, you will be part of the deaths of thousands of others.

But that said, I don't think it's fair to call Z a fraud; he simply has a strong opinion. He has offered no scientific support for that opinion, true, but that's what makes it an OPINION.

As I've said in the past, I think this is strictly a matter of attitude. Raised in the rural South, I am quite comfortable around guns. When I see someone walk into a restaurant here wearing a holstered pistol (not uncommon in Alabama, as you well know[g]), I actually feel SAFER.

It's a matter of attitude.

-- Stephen M. Poole (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), September 22, 2001.

LA Times article today quoted a pilot runnin from LA to Washington. Inflight speech to the passengers that reminded them they they are 200 strong and any terrorist group probably five at tops. Ended by reminding that the declaration of independence started with "We the people...".

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), September 22, 2001.

Stephen:

Maybe I draw a distinction that you don't. I think strong opinions are just fine, provided they are backed by strong evidence and logic. When strong opinions are held *in the face of* contrary strong evidence and logic, this is a qualitatively different matter. This is NOT an opinion, this is a *policy position*, evidence be damned.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 22, 2001.

Flint is right. Z spends a fair amount of time talking out his ass. Somewhere between "Hello" and "How are you?" he has to fit in 10,000 words telling you he's a race car driving, jet setting, rubbing elbows with the heavy-hitters kind of guy. Give the pilots pistols and frangible ammunition. You could load Glaser safety slugs to velocities that would not penetrate the aircraft's hull. Hell, everyone should consider this type of ammunition for home defense. Frangible ammo ensures that you won't accidentally kill your neighbors four houses down.

-- Boo (hoo@hoo.com), September 22, 2001.

The owner of Thunder Ranch, a firearms training school in Nevada, has offered to train any and all interested pilots in the safe and proper use of firearms -- for free.

-- Concerned Citizen (lets.quit@being.sheeple), September 22, 2001.

A "Ranch" in Nevada is usually a whorehouse. Well, maybe that would work too.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 22, 2001.

As a good wolf I demand to be eaten first.

-- (raven@never.more), September 28, 2001.