Real Airline Security
By Anthony Gregory • Wednesday March 28, 2012 3:40 PM PDT • 4 Comments
A Jet Blue pilot went loopy, started screaming about bombs, prayers, Iraq and Afghanistan, and running down the aisle. He was tackled and restrained by passengers and locked out of the cockpit by his copilot—just as it was passengers or crew that secured the planes targeted by the shoe-bomber and underwear bomber.
Indeed, it seems as though passengers and crew are the ultimate defense once the plane is in the air. As for the pilots, they control a weapon far more dangerous than any boxcutter, gun, or even small improvised bomb—the plane itself. Yet what is done to prevent someone malicious or unstable from being a pilot? There are plenty of safeguards, but no perfect guarantee.
If there were a more dangerous incident, however, would unarmed passengers be enough to quell the threat? Would it perhaps be better to let customers board planes with guns—as they were allowed to do so years ago? This seems like a crazy question to ask. A more moderate position is that pilots should be allowed to have guns but not passengers, yet that wouldn’t have worked out as well in this situation.
Tags: Civil Liberties, Terrorism, Transportation 
Perhaps having nightsticks in long vertical pockets on all passenger seat backs would be an effective defense — even against a multiple bad guys with guns.
Al Gregory | Mar 28, 2012 | Reply
Notice that TSA did not prevent the incident nor help. As in most instances, the public was most effective resource.
richard | Mar 29, 2012 | Reply
T.S.A. can not profile people so it was handicapped to do what it is supposed to do, screen people. Really, T.S.A. didn’t stop this one but do you know what all T.S.A HAS STOPPED? You will never know because telling would help the ones that would use the information to get better at hiding what they have.
tom | Apr 3, 2012 | Reply
The myth that TSA is there to “screen” people was exposed a while back when it began to set up check points on highways. TSA has become the “national police force” that Obama promised us in the 2008 campaign. It’s function is to restrict travel. Papers, please?
Chuck | Apr 7, 2012 | Reply