By, Captain Savas Uskent Copyright @ 2002 Airline Captain & Aviation Author All rights are reserved. uskent@yahoo.com PILOTS AND FIREARMS There has been a continuing debate on; whether to arm the flight deck crew of jetliners with firearms, or not. I would suggest the following points should be considered and analyzed carefully by everyone who would prefer to take part in the debate. 1.The thought of "fire arms in flight decks" shall certainly arise deterrence. 2. Meanwhile, beyond doubt, the bullets for the fire arms projected to be used in aircraft, should be suitable to be used in flight decks or in passenger cabins. 3. They should be produced so as to be effective enough to disable the hijacker/s, but at the same time, should never cause catastrophic system/s or airframe failures aboard. As far as the lethality concerned, in case of a worst scenario, the bullets should never be lethal to any of unfortunate passenger/s that might get hit by mistake. The subject is not my speciality, but I believe manufacturing such bullets, should not be a challenging matter. 4. The roominess of flight decks of various jetliners are dissimilar. While most of the heavies' are roomy, pilots sit tight in the flight decks of most of the mid-size jetliners. This case may sometimes prove to be advantageous to the flight deck crew or sometimes vice versa. Let me put it this way: "flight decks are not a suitable combat arena at all.." 5. While deterrence based upon the armed flight deck crew may give potential hijackers an idea of fortified flight decks, that's indeed so. If you think about the reality of the most of the world major airline pilots are originated from military, you find out that, they are already familiar with the use of firearms. As far as the civil originated pilots are concerned, an initial and recurrent training program on the use of firearms shall be necessary. In spite of all of that, shooting even a hijacker shall never be so easy as in training arena, for a "humanly human", unless it is deemed as an absolute necessity. The time frame here shall always be so small to evaluate, whether the situation necessitates the use of firearms or not. Fortunately, most of the pilots have the ability to think, evaluate and react fast. Thanks to God, that is inherent in most pilots. As a matter of fact, "commander pilots" (captain in charge) brief the "first officers" (co-pilots) and the "cabin crew" (flight attendants) on all possible contingencies before the commence of each flight duty. That makes the decision making process even shorter. After considering above mentioned cases, we'll come to the reality of how many pilots shall do carry firearms. I assume, except ex-military pilots that are familiar and friendly with fire arms, it won't be many initially. But I also believe most of the pilots shall enjoy the benefits of deterrence in some degree. No matter whether they prefer to carry firearms actually, or adopt the; "do not not carry, but some carry" idea, that shall be arisen by the time, through the public. By, Captain Savas Uskent Airline Commander & Aviation Author ATP/CFI Next Generation Boeing 737/800, Boeing 737/400-500, Airbus-310/300-200, BAe146/100-70, Learjet-60, Learjet-55C, Learjet-35A, Challenger-601-3A, Caravelle SE-210, Grumman's S-2 |
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