Guns on Planes

[Steve L.]

I`ve been following the news story about sky marshalls being put on U.S. bound planes. Looks like the pilots arn`t in favour of it.

However, I think their feelings are pretty well irrelevant. Why ?

Because the Yanks have every right to demand armed guards on planes flying over their airspace. If B.A. &  Virgin etc won`t do it, then they won`t be allowed to fly to America and we`ll all be flying there on U.S. airlines.

And most importantly, if you are in a hijacked plane in US airspace, it`s going to get shot down by the Yanks, be in no doubt about that.

Since many of us will be flying abroad this year, what does the panel think ?

[daz]

Depends on who has their finger on the trigger  

Daz

[Mary]

<font color='#000080'>Are there not already (and have been for some time) air marshals on El Al flights to Israel?

If you're on a hijacked plane and you're going to get shot down then why have marshals. It may end up making ground security more lax increasing the chances to hijack in the first place, just a thought.

[AdmiralHanson]

<font color='#0000FF'>I understand that the guns they'll be issued with are 'low velocity' ones, this means (in theory), it should be able to stop a terrorist, but not damage the skin of the aircraft.

The big question is what happens if there's a 'Sky Marshall' on board and someone like Vinnie Jones kicks off again in First Class ?

[Twinset & Wing]

They will be made to sit next to an armed sky marshall for the remainder of the flight or when it is practical to remove them.

Marshalls will also be issued with Air tazer weapons which deliver an electronic charge via two pins after projecting them in to the persons body,these temporarily paralise and give a marshall enough time to then cuff the person causing the disturbance.

Another posibility is that marshalls will have a remote link to the pilot who when he recieves a signal that there is a problem will send the plane into a steep but recoverable dive to knock the assailand flying.

all very well thought out.

DD

[Paul Oliver]

Personally i'm not into the firearms even LV ones. However well trained security with tazers and other non lethel weapons i think is a very good idea.

Better ground security a big must though.

What next though - High Speed trains?

Just my thoughts though,

Paul

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (AdmiralHanson @ Jan. 01 2004,16:38)]I understand that the guns they'll be issued with are 'low velocity' ones, this means (in theory), it should be able to stop a terrorist, but not damage the skin of the aircraft.

The big question is what happens if there's a 'Sky Marshall' on board and someone like Vinnie Jones kicks off again in First Class ?

There's nothing new about the use of LV 9mm ammunition (most commonly used in weapon systems like the HK MP5 family and various side-arms like the Browning High Power, the Sig and Barretta) - indeed, the Regiment used it during the Iranian Embassy Seige in 1980 and continue to do so, in one format or another (and continue to seek and experiment with other non-lethal forms of ammo) for all CQB and close-quarter counter terrorist work - for the obvious reason that they want a target to remain a target and NOT a transit point for a 9mm round to work off and either penetrate a hostage, another team member or, as mentioned, the skin of an aircraft.

The Yanks are playing with all kinds of ideas at the moment - upto and including not allowing Moslem commerical pilots to fly anywhere near US air-space! And there are other weapons (deterent) options too: glaser safety slugs, powdered metal and other frangible bullets - the results of these being again that when you get shot, you stay shot, and not risk an exit wound which might then traverse to anf then embed in another innocent, 'friendly' or aircraft skin.

And as Mary said, and as I've recently been experiencing in my sojourns to Tel Aviv and other areas, El Al have been using armed 'air marshalls' since the early 1970s and have the best safety (i.e. lack of terrorist attack) record of any airline in the world, bar none. Most of their commerical aircraft also have the kind of anti-missile (anti-lock-on) counter measures currently deployed by NATO military aircraft to avoid getting taken out of the sky by SAMs. It helps that most, if not all, Israeli commercial pilots have flown in live-fire and combat conditions in their previous lives as military pilots; so they generally come out of the box as being 'sharp'.

There was even a case, before all the above technology was fitted to their commercial aircraft or 'sky marshalls' were in use, where an El Al pilot, on hearing that some mad-twat was running round his plane waving a pistol and shouting the odds about wanting to take the plane to somewhere more akin to his religious/political beliefs where the pilot put the airliner into a sheer nose-dive - resulting in gravity taking over and the terrorist being tossed around the cabin before landing, headlong, at the cockpit door before being jumped by the good citizens of the plane and beaten to within an inch of his life; before being hog-tied and then handed over to the authorities back at Ben Gurion airport. Talk about thinking on yer feet?!

And, when all is said and done, there are other factors which go some way to explaining why 9/11 happened; and no, I am not in the conspiracy theory group which reckons that it, indeed and fact, allowed to happen!!

Here's the play.

And I know we had this conversation a while back, but one of the factors which allowed 9/11 to happen was the 'employment' of minimum-wage-wallahs who, let's face it, had the job options of McDonalds or working bag-search security at the airport - and in a number of cases, the wages at Mickey D's were higher!

The US (or anywhere for that matter) can spend billions on Sky Marshalls, have all the sophistication in electronic surveillance, X-ray technology, chemical element 'sniffers' and all the fully tooled-up troops at the airport it likes - but this ALL falls down if the weakest link in the chain is some migrant worker from El Salvador, who 'No abla' de lingo and quite frankly couldn't give a rat's arse about the job and is merely looking forward to clocking off or his next coffee-break! The sheer weight of baggage he/she's got to check in a given hour aside!

So who is to blame? The migrant worker, or the system which allows that vital role to be filled by such poorly motivated and under-paid staff?? Kinda makes a mockery of all the other roles going on around it in efforts to secure folks' security, right?

Seems to me like the US knows where the gaps are and willfully allows them to remain unplugged. And so shall she reap her own rewards in doing so......

Anyway, thought you might find this of interest:


[UK] Sky marshals plan followed orders from Washington
By Toby Helm, Paul Marston and David Rennie
(Filed: 30/12/2003)


Ministers were responding to orders from Washington when they announced the deployment of armed sky marshals on selected British flights across the Atlantic, it emerged yesterday.

As pilots groups and airlines questioned whether armed guards would make passengers any safer, the US Department for Homeland Security said it had asked all international carriers to comply in response to a heightened terrorist threat.

[Picture removed] Tom Ridge: 'We will take specific steps to increase security whenever necessary'

Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, announced emergency powers allowing him to demand marshals be placed on any cargo or passenger flight identified as a risk by US intelligence. These could be flights heading to, from or over US territory.

Citing al-Qa'eda's &quot;desire to conduct attacks against commercial airlines within the United States&quot;, Mr Ridge described the move as &quot;protective action as part of our ongoing effort to make air travel safe for Americans and visitors alike&quot;.

He added: &quot;I have said that we will take specific steps to increase security whenever necessary and, with this action, we are doing just that.&quot;

There was confusion on Sunday when David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, and Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, rushed out a statement saying extra security measures had been sanctioned &quot;where appropriate&quot;, including the use of sky marshals on international carriers.

The action was said at the time to have been in response to a heightened terrorist threat against American targets.

The Department of Transport yesterday refused to comment directly on the instructions from Washington, saying only that it was in &quot;regular contact&quot; with the US authorities. It insisted that only the UK could &quot;authorise&quot; the placing of sky marshals on British carriers.

Mr Darling said yesterday that pilots would be informed if there was a sky marshal on their flight. &quot;The captain of the aircraft would know, for perfectly obvious reasons,&quot; he said. &quot;He has got to fly the aircraft.&quot;

Aviation sources insisted that the use of armed sky marshals on British airliners was likely to be extremely rare. Flights that were the subject of specific threats were far more likely to be cancelled than take off with the undercover police on board.

Airline managers, supported by their pilots, believe that routine use of marshals would become a security liability.

Potential terrorists would know that guns were in the cabin and seek to obtain them by overpowering marshals rather than the more complex task of smuggling their own weapons on board.

It is understood that Sunday's statement also came in response to intelligence gathered by the US about a possible threat to a British airliner within the last week.

British Airways, which operates more than 50 flights a day between London and 18 US cities, made clear that it was far from convinced that use of marshals would improve security.

A BA statement said: &quot;If a request was received for the deployment of a covert police capability on a flight, only if British Airways was satisfied that safety was thereby enhanced to an acceptable level would the flight take place.&quot;

BA feels that with reinforced cockpit doors installed across its fleet, the risks of a repetition of a September 11-style hijacking have been greatly reduced. Nonetheless, the US government is pushing ahead with a major expansion of the use of marshalls on American domestic flights.

Thousands of armed Federal Air Marshals have been hired in the United States since the September 11 attacks, travelling undercover on selected flights, with orders to kill attempted hijackers, if necessary. US pilots have also won the right to wear guns in the cockpit, after special training.

Aerodynamics experts say that the probability of stray bullets causing catastrophic decompression of an aircraft is low, though there would be a risk of a disaster if a bullet pierced a hydraulic or fuel line.


[Bren's PS: I've had this conversation with a number of pilots and air crew, and I always get the same answer from them. If I ever came across any wanker (a la some pissed-up Vinnie Tosser Jones, not some dude with a side-arm) shouting the odds and distressing the crew, or worse; then they would get all 15 and half stone and six foot one of me changing their day on the spot.....until such time as the crew could hand-cuff the Muppet to a suitable part of the airframe. My suggestion to the crew or pilot about this always meets with the same response: &quot;Well sir, were you to take such action, then we may be forced to look the other way......until such time as you had secured him and until we might take over with the securing straps.......&quot;]

[Dominic]

I think it's a fairly idiotic idea - first they make everybody go through intensive security checks to make sure there are no weapons on board. Then they send on marshalls with weapons in hand.

Given that terrorists aren't afraid to die for the cause, there's likely to be a large number willing to try their chances at grabbing a gun off some unsuspecting marshall who's become complacent after a number of boring hours in the air...

[DanE]

Intensive security checks? &nbsp;I've flown to the US several times over the last year or so and have been had my bags hand searched many times &nbsp;The searches are very hit or miss.

At heathrow, for instance, they tend to search the people who turn up at the gate early, but only a few of the late arrivals get pulled out of the line. &nbsp;The searches they do on the hand luggage have been pitiful to say the least. &nbsp;I realise that the hand luggage has already been though a scanner, but if you're not going to seach it properly by hand, why bother?

They do seem to do a good search at Epply Airfield, Omaha, though...

The biggest shock was flying home from Madrid a couple of days after 9/11. &nbsp;Quit work early expecting lots of delays at the airport. &nbsp;It was like nothing had happened

All said and done, I won't be letting the threat of terrorist action stop me travelling. &nbsp;Do that and they've won.

dan.

ps. &nbsp;Didn't they watch ConAir? &nbsp;Guns in the sky - bad!

[AdmiralHanson]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Paul Oliver @ Jan. 01 2004,23:06)]What next though - High Speed trains?

<font color='#0000FF'>&quot;I demand you take this train to Cuba ...&quot; &nbsp;