The main weak-link is access to the cockpit. Remove that threat, and the damage a terrorist could do with a plane is severely limited.
Instead of focusing on this politically driven desire to get more federal employees hired. We should be looking at real solutions. From what I understand, nothing the baggage inspectors did or did not do contributed to the 9/11 attack. They followed procedures and guidance which was given to them. So, whether they were federal employees or not, wouldn't have mattered a bit.
Then it begs the question...why are the media and politicians on this extremely motivated crusade to create 30 thousand new federal employees?
A secure pilot double-door, with an emergency auto/alert guidance system would do far more to ensure safety on commercial airplanes then different baggage inspectors.
This pilot says a lot that should be listened to in this article imo...
Message 16589428
We must lay some of the blame for 9/11 at the doorstep of our own leaders in government, the FAA, airline executives, and manufacturers, who have all failed us. For more than 30 years, I've been advocating (as have a few others) secure (armored) cockpit doors and bulkheads, and a rigid policy of not letting the bad guys in under any circumstances whatsoever. All these years, that particular suggestion falls like a stone into a bottomless well. It gets no response, at all, and I don't understand why, I know of no downside, except a modest cost. An armored bulkhead/door is EASY, and its existence alone will deter almost all attempts at hijacking.
This simple inexpensive step alone would have prevented almost all the hijackings and crimes committed on airliners, and absolutely would have prevented what happened on September 11. This isn't rocket science, and it's been done before. Taiwan had this policy as early as the sixties to prevent defections and hijackings to Red China, and El Al does it today, with total success. The politicians, the FAA, and the industry not only cannot think of things like this, we don't seem able to learn from the examples of others!
Next, make it public knowledge that we will comply with hijackers' demands (short of crashing), and will take them anywhere, but no matter how many passengers they kill, or what they do, they will NOT enter the cockpit. Some seem to think that's a selfish attitude for a pilot, as it would give us protection, while the passengers and flight attendants are exposed to violence. But this is not a time for "equal opportunity," we've just had it demonstrated that if the pilots are harmed, the whole airplane may be doomed, not to mention many people on the ground.
This is the hardest part of the whole thing, because the pilots are going to be bombarded with stresses they have not and cannot be trained for. They will be overwrought with emotions, thinking that maybe, just maybe, if only they open the door, the hijackers will only require a diversion, not conversion into a large cruise missile. To my knowledge, no pilot has ever been able to withstand that kind of pressure, and even after 9/11, there are some that could not hold out.
Future hijackers will, of course, be full of assurances that they're really nice guys, and if only the crew opens the door, everything would be all right - even if they have just disemboweled several people. It's a very ugly situation, and pilots would need to be thoroughly indoctrinated to expect the ugliness. It'll be a lot easier to do that, after 9/11.
Where has the FAA been? Why, they've been really busy, enacting FARs that absolutely, positively forbid passengers from standing up during pushback! Or, insisting that airlines report on-time departures and arrivals, which mean NOTHING for safety. They have thousands of inspectors, micromanaging everything down to the smallest detail, while completely losing sight of the big issues. FAA inspectors are no longer allowed to use judgment, and the overall attitude passed down from DC is, "We don't care about actual safety, just make sure the paperwork is done right." And the paperwork that tracks the paperwork. Most of an inspector's work is filling out forms that account for what he (and others) have done, which is mostly filling out forms that account for what he (and others) have done. Even FAA inspectors admit that the FAA is a hopeless bureaucracy, and can no longer do much that is useful. |
