What's you opinion on allowing airline pilots carry handguns as a "last line of defense" against hijacking of commercial aircraft?

 

Something that won't put a hole in the cabin is fine by me.




-Matt

 

I think that the flight attendants should be standing at the plane's door with a big basket of handguns, giving one to every person who boards. Who would dare try anyhting foolish knowing that everyone else on board is protecting the plane?

 

I think stun guns might be a better item to equip pilots with.
While I have no problems with pilots blowing the heads off of would be terrorists, I can see the potential for alot more problems.

The pic is funny, but I somehow doubt he could weild that thing in a cockpit

 

Station - that's a good idea...except what if the terrorists buy every (or most of the) seat on the plane? Then again, if they did that, the plane only good for getting places, not necessarily using it as a weapon since you're only killing hundreds of terrorists each time. Not very economical in terms of terrorist personnel.

Mindcore - what if they welded it between the officers, on the roof, with a button to active it? As soon as someone opened the door (who wasn't supposed to), they get blown away at the touch of a button!

In all seriousness, I think sky marshals are the best bet. El Al has used them extremely efficiently and effectively and a terrorist never knows who could be the one to do a double tap to the head. Loose guns on uniformed personnel are too much of a liability, in my opinion.

As a last line of defense, how about a completely automated landing sequence that is punched into an aircraft so that no matter what a pilot might want to do (to save lives or whatever), the plane MUST land where and as intended? I believe they can land planes pretty much on auto pilot these days....so it wouldn't be much of a stretch, would it? Hit a "panic" button and the plane just takes over itself.

 

taser, rather...

 

http://64.224.14.56/EUNI/july_02/pilots_01.html