On Aug 27, 8:37 pm, Tiglath <te...@tiglath.net> wrote:
On Aug 27, 9:46 pm, Ken Wood <ken_woo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Aug 27, 7:02 pm, Deirdre Sholto Douglas
finch.enter...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
To think that people in such business will splash out on new doors
unless faced with the gravest of situations is inanely ignorant, and
to think that their insurers should have led the way is gonzo inane.
20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, it makes
experts of everyone.
Deirdre
Criticism for errors of omission are often, but not always,
hindsighting.
Backpedaling already?
Goldfinger boy tries to plant more phony arguments by clipping and
distorting.
Sometimes its more along the line of common sense.
Fortified cockpit doors are not a total answer to 911 type situations.
9/11 'type situations" are characterized by terrorists using planes as
missiles.
No cockpit access means no missile.
So much for your "common sense."
Goldfinger boy tries to plant more phony arguments by clipping and
distorting.
but they are an important part of any solution. And it took no great
foresight to see the need for them.
The "need" had not presented itself yet, other than the need to keep
drunks out of the cockpit, which is something else altogether.
Therefore without the "need" nothing warranted anything better than a
good latch to keep irate passengers out, not quite the same as keeping
Jihadists bent on martyrdom. Learn the difference.
Tiggy, you're sinking and flailing around.
The article was clearly about the danger of people getting acces to
airliners cockpits, much like the 911 terrorists did.
The author even uses the word "kamikaze" in the discussion of
potential risks.
Tiggy, you're sinking and flailing around.
Goldfinger, indeed,

As for hindsight, take a look at this Salon article published about 17
months before 911.
salon.com > Travel April 8, 2000
URL:http://www.salon.com/travel/diary/hest/2000/04/08/cockpits
Cockpit assault
How inane!
LOL
That article is about assaulting pilots with no other purpose in mind
than venting anger, and there was not a single incident in which the
plane was left without a pilot or crashed because of the incident.
It has NOTHING to do with 9/11.
LOL. Tiggy, who looked to the movie Goldfinger for engineering
information on airliners, now cannot see why drunks and crazies
assaulting pilots in airliner cockpits prior to 911 was relevant to
security.
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

)
All the more, it is VERY LIKELY that if the 9/11 planes had fortified
doors that the pilots would have opened them as the terrorist
threatened to kill the crew, for AGAIN DUMMY:
The only dummie here is you Tiggy.
You're thrashing around like a child pretending that there weren't
clear indications pre 911 that airliner security was way too lax -
particularly in terms of nuts getting into the cockpit.
NO ONE SUSPECTED that
the AIM was to take command of the plane and fly it against a
building. ONLY upon that realization would a pilot have stayed put
and consider all killed on board as preferable to having the plane
flown into a building.
Get with it, already, dummy.
I am with it Dummy, and that's why I'm finding so laughably easy to
show you up.
Folks,
Let's remember, this is about pre 911 airliner security and stopping
nuts and terrosits from getting into airliner cockpits.
I AM WINNING

))
Hell, I've WON.
LOL
Ken is trying to peddle his hindsight as visionary gift. Pathetic.
Oh, hindsight?? I'll just paste the Salon article again.
Folks' look at the artile date and the incidents it describes.
Carry on, Tiggy.

) Hindsight, ideed, Goldfinger, indeed

)
salon.com > Travel April 8, 2000
URL:
http://www.salon.com/travel/diary/hest/ ... 8/cockpitsCockpit assault
Since July 1997, over a dozen passengers have attempted to breach
cockpit doors during commercial airline flights. We've been lucky so
far.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Elliott Neal Hester
On March 16, aboard Alaska Airlines flight 259 from Puerto Vallarta,
Mexico, to San Francisco, a man did something that angry, frightened,
deranged and intoxicated passengers are doing with alarming frequency
these days: He broke through the cockpit door and attacked the pilots.
Provoked (or so his attorney claims) by a bad reaction to blood-
pressure medicine, Peter Bradley, 39, shouted, "I'm going to kill
you," and lunged for the controls.
Having been alerted of the impending attack, the co-pilot was armed
with an ax. He fought with Bradley, suffering a cut to his hand that
would require eight stitches. Struggling to fly the plane during this
tight-quartered assault, the pilot made an urgent plea for help over
the intercom. At least seven passengers responded. The 6-foot-2, 250-
pound assailant was snatched from the cockpit, wrestled to the ground,
bound hand and foot with plastic restraints and taken into custody by
federal authorities upon landing in San Francisco. A potential
airplane disaster was averted. But what might have happened if no one
had responded to the captain's plea? Or what if the response had been
too little or too late?
Eleven days later, on March 27, an airplane cockpit was the scene of
yet another in-flight battle. This time the results were even scarier.
A German man broke into the flight deck during a Germania charter
flight from Berlin to the Canary Islands. The man, believed by
authorities to have been under the influence of alcohol, forced his
way into the cockpit while the plane was over Spanish airspace. Once
inside, reports say, he threatened the pilots and told them the plane
was under assault by "terrorists." He then proceeded to punch, kick
and choke the 59-year-old pilot.
At some point the attacker managed to grab the controls. The aircraft
veered from its flight path and lost altitude briefly, but the co-
pilot managed to stabilize it. "Help, we need strong men, we need
strong men!" the co-pilot reportedly announced. Four passengers from
Sweden, Russia and Germany, along with flight attendants, responded to
his plea and managed to subdue the attacker. A spokesman for Germania,
a charter company operated by LTU, said "There was no real danger at
any point for the passengers." This statement is a crock of public-
relations bullshit, pungent enough to wrinkle noses on both sides of
the Atlantic. Everyone aboard the aircraft was in danger, all 143
passengers and crew. Why else would the co-pilot be screaming for
help?
During the past few years, passenger attacks against flight attendants
have been well documented by the media. Cabin personnel have been
slammed against bulkheads, put into headlocks, punched, kicked, spat
at, urinated upon, hit over the head with beer bottles and threatened
with their lives. These in-flight assaults are extremely rare, yet
more and more air ragers find themselves traveling to that final
destination behind bars. Horrible though it may be, when a flight
attendant is attacked, the safety of an aircraft and its passengers is
not always at issue. When someone breaks through the cockpit door,
however, when someone poses a physical threat to the only two people
qualified to keep an aircraft aloft, the potential for disaster makes
it everybody's issue.
The cockpit door is the only barrier between a kamikaze passenger and
an unsuspecting pilot. It is a marginal defense, built for ease of
crew entry and as an emergency escape, not as a fortification against
determined intruders. The Alaska Airlines ordeal prompted five popular
airlines (Alaska, American, Delta, Northwest and TWA) to announce,
just one week after the incident, that they are seeking ways to
fortify bifold cockpit doors -- standard on MD-83 aircraft -- like the
one Bradley was able to break through. "The one thing you can't do is
put a bank vault door on the cockpit," said Alaska Airlines spokesman
Jack Evans. "The door needs to be secure, but it also needs to be an
emergency exit as well."
Paradoxically, some international carriers allow the cockpit door to
remain unlocked during a flight. Any passenger can walk right in, even
those who might mistake the cockpit for the lavatory. U.S. airlines
adopt a quite different policy, however. They require that the cockpit
door remain locked at all times during flight, except, of course,
while crew members are entering and exiting. In this respect, pilots
and flight attendants carry cockpit keys as standard equipment. But in
one particularly appalling incident, a cockpit key gave a deranged
passenger access to the flight deck and the consequences were fatal.
On July 23, as All Nippon Airways flight 61 ascended from Tokyo's
Haneda Airport on its way to Sapporo, Yuji Nishizawa, 28, got up from
his seat, pulled an 8-inch knife on a female flight attendant and
forced her to unlock the cockpit door. It's not certain how he managed
to smuggle a deadly weapon through airport security. But what he did
next is crystal clear. He ordered the co-pilot out of the cockpit and
demanded that the pilot fly to a U.S. military base west of Tokyo.
When the pilot refused, Nishizawa stabbed him in the neck and took
control of the aircraft.
With the deranged man behind the yoke, the Boeing 747, packed with 503
passengers and a crew of 14, plunged to within 300 meters (984 feet)
of the ground. Moments before what might have been the airline
industry's worst-ever disaster, the deposed co-pilot and an off-duty
pilot stormed the cockpit, tied up the assailant and resumed control
of the aircraft, which they managed to land safely in Tokyo. Despite
the efforts of an onboard physician, the injured pilot bled to death.
Later, when police questioned Nishizawa about his motive, he expressed
a fondness for flight simulation games, which had apparently ceased to
capture his imagination. "I wanted to soar through the air," he
reportedly told police.
In the All Nippon Airways case, a hijacker forced his way past the
cockpit door in a planned attack. But unplanned break-in attempts by
disturbed passengers add a whole new wrinkle to the withering face of
in-flight tranquillity. Since July 1997, there have been at least 14
instances where an unauthorized person attempted to breach the cockpit
door during a commercial airline flight, including the two described
above. Of these, eight were successful. The result: Three physical
attacks on pilots (all in March), at least five flight diversions and
more than two dozen pilots who were forced to shift their attention
from the controls to a potentially violent intruder. Here's how the
incidents played out:
July 14, 1997: After Thomas Kasper poured hot coffee on a flight
attendant (inflicting second- and third-degree burns), his traveling
companion, Susan Callihan, kicked a hole in the cockpit door.
Witnesses on the Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Los
Angeles said Callihan then told the flight crew there were bombs and
guns on the airplane, though none were found. In addition to this,
Kasper nearly opened an emergency door when the plane landed. Both
were arrested and convicted of interfering with a flight crew. The
couple received his-and-hers prison sentences of three and two years
respectively.
July 27, 1997: A woman traveling with her young son tried to enter the
cockpit aboard a Northwest Airlink flight from Iowa to the Minneapolis-
St.Paul airport. When the pilot closed the door, the woman --
described by one passenger as a white-knuckle flier in the midst of a
panic attack -- became hysterical. She kicked open the cockpit door.
Passengers said the pilots chose to return to Fort Dodge Regional
Airport because they could no longer concentrate.
Nov. 25, 1997: As the pilots of a Cathay Pacific aircraft prepared to
land in Bangkok, Thailand, a drunken Burmese passenger stormed the
cockpit. He was removed by passengers and crew, handcuffed and turned
over to Bangkok police upon landing. At the time of the incident,
Cathay Pacific's policy allowed cockpit doors to remain unlocked
during flight. The policy, an airline spokesman claimed, facilitates
better communication between pilots and cabin crew.
Dec. 16, 1997: Dean Trammel, a muscular, 200-pound college football
player, suffered a "psychotic break" aboard U.S. Airways flight 38
bound for Baltimore from Los Angeles. After wandering up the aisle and
claiming to be Jesus Christ, he tried to get into the cockpit. Flight
attendants blocked access, but Trammel threw one of them over three
rows of seats. She slammed into a bulkhead. Passengers and off-duty
U.S. Airways pilots wrestled Trammel to the ground. He was tied with
seat-belt extensions at his wrists, elbows, ankles, knees and legs.
The plane landed with the two off-duty pilots sitting on top of him.
Sept. 23, 1998: The FBI charged Titan Tibor Sallai with intimidating a
flight crew by allegedly attempting to enter the cockpit of a United
Airlines jet. The plane was traveling between Las Vegas and
Washington. Crew members had to use force to prevent Sallai from
opening the cockpit door as well as an emergency exit door. Federal
agents reported that at some point during the flight, Sallai attempted
to drink contact lens cleaning fluid. The plane diverted to Denver.
Oct. 27, 1998: British rock star Ian Brown, formerly a singer with the
Stone Roses, threatened to cut off the hands of a British Airways
flight attendant. While the pilots attempted to land the aircraft, he
hammered against the door. Brown claimed the pilot had provoked him.
Lawyers have attempted to exonerate him.
April 5, 1999: An intoxicated passenger forced his way into the
cockpit of an unidentified commercial jet as pilots were attempting to
land at Copenhagen, Denmark's Kastrup Airport. Once inside the
cockpit, the passenger began shouting abuse at the pilots. His voice
was reported to have been so loud and distracting that the crew had
difficulty hearing radio directives from air-traffic control. The man
was arrested upon landing.
June 6, 1999: After being denied more alcohol, Christopher Bayes
fought with flight attendants and tried to storm into the cockpit,
according to prosecutors at his trial. Delta Airlines Flight 64, en
route to Manchester, England, from Atlanta, was forced to divert to
Bangor, Maine, where Bayes was arrested. Bayes, who continues to deny
his guilt, was convicted of assault and sentenced to six months in
prison.
Aug. 5, 1999: Sanil Shetty Kumar, an American, was given a six-month
jail sentence after trying to force his way into the cockpit on a
Singapore Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Singapore via Tokyo.
Kumar became intoxicated during the L.A. to Tokyo segment. After
cockpit entry was thwarted by passengers and two male flight
attendants, Kumar attempted to open an emergency exit door, shouting,
"Tonight, everybody will die."
Nov. 21, 1999: A Canadian Airlines jet flying to Halifax from Calgary
was forced to divert to Ontario after an angry passenger walked into
the cockpit. The man, who allegedly attempted to assault the pilot,
had been shouting and creating a ruckus earlier. He had to be removed
from the cockpit by passengers and crew members. At the time of the
incident, Canadian Airlines policy allowed cockpit doors to remain
unlocked except during takeoff and landing.
March 2, 2000: The FBI filed a criminal complaint against Joachim
Peter Franke, a German national who tried to break into the cockpit of
a Delta Airlines jet because he thought the plane was "flying too low
and was in danger of crashing." The deranged man had to be restrained
after repeatedly trying to push past a flight attendant who blocked
the cockpit door. The attendant yelled for help. Two passengers came
to the rescue and held Franke in a seat until landing. Franke faces a
fine of $10,000 and up to 20 years in prison.
March 20, 2000: An angry American woman was arrested after allegedly
entering the cockpit during an America West flight from Phoenix to New
York. How Denise Laverne Brown managed to breach the cockpit door is
not exactly clear. But once inside, Brown allegedly attacked the co-
pilot. FBI agent Doug Beldon said, "Apparently she refused to return
to her seat, failed to obey the orders of the flight personnel, became
angry, went into the cockpit and struck the co-pilot." The flight
diverted to Albuquerque, N.M., where the passenger was taken into
custody by federal authorities.
As much a testament to the competence of airline pilots as to the
swift response of dauntless passengers and cabin crew, not one of
these cockpit intrusions resulted in an airplane disaster. But if
attacks continue at the present rate, how long can courage and
competence hold out?
At least one airline isn't waiting to find out. More as a deterrent to
hijacking than a defense against cockpit-bound passengers with fear or
alcohol pumping through their veins, the government of India recently
instituted a sky marshals program. As of Jan. 1, all Indian carriers
are subject to random occupation by armed National Security Guard
commandos. In an attempt to add an additional layer of in-flight
security, flight attendants now undergo special "anti-hijacking"
training. This no-nonsense approach comes after the Christmas Eve
hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane that left one man dead and saw
hostages held aboard the aircraft for nearly a week.
Are similar measures needed to prevent unplanned attacks like those on
Alaska Airlines and Germania? Does this latest development by the
Indian government signal an increase of federal marshals on U.S.
carriers? Veteran fliers will remember that in 1970, following a
decade in which U.S. airlines experienced dozens of airplane
hijackings -- many of them to Cuba -- the sky marshal program was
born.
These specially trained, armed agents travel on flights that have a
higher-than-normal probability of being hijacked. Referred to nowadays
as "federal air marshals," they sit quietly in coach or first class,
dressed in civilian clothes and are authorized to make arrests without
warrants for any offense against the United States or its aircraft.
The air marshal program was enabled by the Federal Aviation Act of
1958, the Anti-hijacking Act of 1947 and the International Security
and Development Act of 1985.
Capt. Bob Cox is special projects officer for the national security
committee of the Air Line Pilots Association, an employee labor union
representing 55,000 pilots at 51 U.S. and Canadian carriers (including
United, Delta, TWA, Northwest, U.S. Airways and Alaska). Cox believes
that other airlines should follow the example set by Indian carriers.
"The ALPA strongly endorses an increase in the use of armed federal
air marshals on random domestic flights to deter or prevent violent
attacks on crew members," he says. "These are highly trained
individuals with well-refined abilities to protect the cockpit and
will do so at all costs."
Not all pilots agree with such a drastic approach. Ed Horton, an
international airline captain with 25 years' experience in matters of
flight security and disruptive passengers, doesn't want the airplane
cabin to turn into a battle zone. "The last thing you want is shots
being fired inside an aircraft." Horton believes the best way to stop
potentially violent passengers is with well-trained eyes rather than
weaponry. "All airlines need to do a better job at training crew
members to recognize potentially disruptive passengers," he says. "We
need to learn more effective ways to approach them, how to diffuse the
problem and how to deal with them effectively should violence erupt."
With the possible exception of Indian Airlines and a few others, most
airline companies do not properly train their flight attendants on how
to handle violent passengers. Cabin crews are equipped with written,
step-by-step procedures for dealing with almost every conceivable
problem on a flight: seat malfunctions, broken ovens, cabin
depressurization, medical emergencies, emergency evacuations and
inoperative lavatories. They even receive detailed information on what
steps to take should a woman give birth in flight. But there are no
comprehensive procedures for suppressing a ballistic customer, no
blueprint for crews to follow should they come face to face with the
passenger from hell.
Left to their own devices, crew members are nevertheless quick to
improvise. When Trammel attempted to break into the cockpit of the
U.S. Airways jet, a quick-thinking flight attendant used a service
cart to block access to the door. That stopped him long enough for
passengers to help wrestle him to the ground. Flight attendant Renee
Sheffer suffered serious injuries during the melee. Her husband, Mike,
promptly created the Skyrage Foundation, a watchdog organization aimed
at eradicating assaults against flight crews. With Sheffer at the
helm, the foundation's Web site tracks every reported instance of in-
flight violence and serves as a forum for open dialogue on the
subject. Sheffer believes that "anyone who attempts to, or actually
enters, the cockpit and endangers the safe operation of the aircraft
should have the maximum penalty imposed if convicted. (If President
Clinton signs the aviation bill that the House and Senate just passed,
that would mean a $25,000 fine)."
But he'd like to see the penalties become even more severe. "We should
also adjust the federal sentencing guidelines to reflect the
enormously serious nature of these acts, by increasing the level of
offense to something similar to kidnapping or attempted murder. That
way, federal judges would be able to impose serious prison terms."
In 1994, the Federal Aviation Administration reported 121 incidents of
in-flight passenger misconduct. These incidents run the gamut, from
severely rude and obnoxious behavior -- for example, a passenger
verbally threatening to punch a crew member -- to outright physical
assault. By 1998 the figure had reached 283.
But because the FAA records only those incidents that airlines choose
to disclose, the total number of assaults is probably much higher.
United Airlines, for example, recorded 635 incidents of disruptive
behavior in 1998. Of these, 61 were physical assaults. If one airline
claims to have had 635 disruptive incidents in one year (9.6 percent
of which were assaults), and the FAA reports a grand total of only 283
occurrences on 84 U.S. airlines during the same period, it's safe to
say that somebody is not telling the whole story.
Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, a pleasant smile and friendly
demeanor will no longer be listed in the job description for those
seeking employment as a flight attendant. Instead, airlines may seek
physically imposing, nightclub bouncer types who can deliver a knee to
the groin or a blow to the solar plexus as effortlessly as an after-
dinner cordial.
Now that older jets with three-pilot cockpits are gradually giving way
to economically efficient models built with a cockpit for two, the
modern-day flight crew is reduced by 33 percent. With only two pilots
aboard instead of three on many flights, their safety and well-being
have become more important than ever. As a result, pilots are becoming
more and more reluctant to put themselves in harm's way. "Sending a
pilot into the passenger cabin to help resolve a dispute seriously
diminishes the safety of the flight," says Northwest Airlines Capt.
Stephen Luckey, chairman of the ALPA's national security committee.
"This is particularly so in the event of an altercation which could
result in an incapacitated pilot."
Airline pilots must remain untouched and unencumbered behind the
cockpit door. Unsound doors need to be fortified. Cabin crews need to
be better trained. The federal air marshal program may need to be
expanded or restructured to accommodate this new wave of nonterrorist
terrorism. Until these aspects of in-flight security are properly
addressed, who's going to stop a fearless, able-bodied maniac from
breaking into the cockpit and assaulting the two most important
individuals on an aircraft? Fearless, able-bodied passengers and cabin
crew have done so in the past, but our luck is bound to run out one of
these days.
salon.com | April 8, 2000
- - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Elliott Neal Hester has been a flight attendant for 14 years. He has
also written for National Geographic Traveler, Men's Fitness, Glamour,
Maxim and Caribbean Travel & Life. Out of the Blue appears every other
Tuesday. E-mail your tale of life in the sky to Salon Travel. For more
columns by Hester, visit his column archive.
Hindsight, ideed, Goldfinger, indeed

)