# Can we seal aircraft cockpits? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 12, 2001, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979 "2001-09-12T01:38:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979/61 "2001-09-21T22:46:38Z")
The idea of using sleeping gas wouldn’t work. A prepared terrorist could surely don a gas mask, put on heavy clothing, and carry a flashlight. If you use sleeping gas, taser, mace, or turn out the lights, all you do is make it easier for the terrorist to subdue the mob of angry passengers. Similarly, there are ways to get through a door… any door. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979/62 "2001-09-21T23:24:50Z")
(1) How would a terrorist know that the cabin was being gassed until everybody began to get groggy? A terrorist would have to strap on his gas mask prior to declaring his intent to hijack, and that would sort of ruin the element of surprize. With a gas mask on, field of vision is significantly reduced. I don’t think any terrorist who is outnumbered 200-1 will take such a chance by limiting his single most important sensory organ. (2) Gas masks are large & cumbersome. They would have to be disallowed as carry-on items. This means of course that we still need to be very thorough in the inspection of carry on bags. I propose limiting all carry on luggage, except possibly for a small purse & laptop computers. There are always “what if” scenarios to any safety measure you can enact. Hopefully, the right combination of several layers of safety & security will make the likelyhood of future successful hijack attempts infinitesimally small. The most crucial security issue is the cockpit door. It **must** remain locked at all times, and it should have a small peep-hole style opening to shoot through. There is absolutely no reason why an armored car should have better security than an airplane cockpit. ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979/63 "2001-09-22T00:49:52Z")
> [@](#): > > This is exactly why it wouldn’t work. If you get a message saying that “for every minute you don’t open the door, another passenger dies” – what pilot is not going to open the door immediately? You could give control of the door to the tower only. Let them have the combination that opens the door, and don’t give it to the pilots unless there is a normal emergency. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979/64 "2001-09-22T01:20:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freedom \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > This is exactly why it wouldn’t work. If you get a message saying that “for every minute you don’t open the door, another passenger dies” – what pilot is not going to open the door immediately? > > You could give control of the door to the tower only. Let them have the combination that opens the door, and don’t give it to the pilots unless there is a normal emergency. \*\* How is the tower supposed to know whether or not it is a “normal” emergency? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979/65 "2001-09-22T01:44:42Z")
What is the pilot going to do when a terrorist starts a fire in the back cabin? Ignore it? I ask again: How do they go to the bathroom? How do they get their meals? What do they do when the terrorists start killing people one by one until they open the door? Anyway, we’re fighting the last battle. The next one isn’t going to come by air, at least not by passenger jet. If another attack comes by air, it’ll be something like a Gulfstream IV business jet loaded with explosives. And if you want to think of what the terrorists could do that’s very destructive, you sure don’t have to look at ramming a jet into a highrise. How about a sapper team floating a backpack nuke to the bottom of the Hoover Dam, or another hydro dam? How about getting some raw plutonium and scattering through a city from a light aircraft, or the back of a truck? How about poisoning the water supply of a major city? Or exposing the international airline hub in Minneapolis/St. Paul to some biotoxin that doesn’t have symptoms that show up for a few days? By the time we discover it, people from every city in America will have been exposed to it. Bin Laden has a warehouse full of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles left over from the Afghan war. If he’s managed to smuggle any of them into the U.S., there could be terrorists waiting under the approach path of major airports, waiting for a signal to bring down a few 747’s. There are some approach paths that go right over major population centers. Hit the plane from the ground, and you don’t have to worry about being aboard to steer it into a highrise - it’ll crash all on its own. Did anyone see or read ‘Black Sunday’? That attack was with a remarkably simple device - a big metal sphere with 20,000 bullets poking out of it. A nail goes behind the primer of each one, with an explosive charge in the center. Drop it by parachute into the middle of an open-air baseball game, and detonate it with a $100 radio control transmitter, and you can kill thousands of people in one shot. And it could be built from items that are totally non-controlled, by anyone with a modicum of machine tool expertise. I’m sure if we brainstormed for an evening we could come up with 20 different ways to inflict as much damage in one blow as was managed on Sept. 11., none of which involve crashing airliners. And Bin Laden has had seven YEARS to think of things to do. I actually think it’s dangerous to focus on airline safety as much as we have, because it diverts attention away from the next possible delivery method. ---
**Author:** ![jnutley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jnutley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnutley)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979/66 "2001-09-22T06:22:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*What is the pilot going to do when a terrorist starts a fire in the back cabin? Ignore it? \*\* The idea of a separate cabin (raised about halfway through this thread) implies that the cockpit cannot be entered by terrorists. This prevents the airplane being turned into a guided missle against high value targets. It does not prevent blowing the plane up in mid air or other such attacks, but the concept in the original question was not to make planes invulnerable to all threats, only to prevent recurrances of the Sept. 11 disaster. > [@](#): > > **I ask again: How do they go to the bathroom? How do they get their meals? What do they do when the terrorists start killing people one by one until they open the door?** Are you aware that fighter pilots ferry their F16s intercontenental distances, refueling in flight, eating, and relieving themselves while never getting out of their seats? More to the point these issues were addressed in previous posts to this thread when individuals pointed out that bathrooms could be added to an expanded cockpit area, although fighter plane style relief tubes would be cheaper. Many comercial airline pilots are former military pilots already. > [@](#): > > \*\*Anyway, we’re fighting the last battle. The next one isn’t going to come by air, at least not by passenger jet. > > \ > > I actually think it’s dangerous to focus on airline safety as much as we have, because it diverts attention away from the next possible delivery method. \*\* If you want to go “McGyver” on the next scary terrorist improvization, that deserves a separate thread. This thread asks a limited question, trying to determine if a limited, focused response to a specified problem would be useful. ---
**Author:** ![jnutley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jnutley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnutley)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979/67 "2001-09-22T10:11:50Z")
Here’s some info off the AP newswire written by Sharon Cohen, the article is on Salon at this link: [http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2001/09/21/passengers/index.html](http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2001/09/21/passengers/index.html) > [@](#): > > John Mazor, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, said pilots are now considering the possibility of heading a public awareness campaign to emphasize that “safety is everybody’s responsibility.” > > “We’re using the term `aggressively defend the airplane,”’ Mazor said. > > “The danger is we don’t want passengers to suddenly be forming posses every time somebody speaks with a foreign accent,” he added. “There has to be some way of channeling this and making sure it’s not unleashed except in cases of dire emergency.” > > The union is leading a campaign to improve airline safety and **one of the first priorities will be to get a stronger cockpit door, Mazor said.** He also said pilots are rethinking their opposition to guns in the cockpit. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979/68 "2001-09-22T20:31:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Attrayant \* > \*\*How is it that minimum-wage amusement park employees can locate & confiscate a keychain-fob miniature swiss army knife, but people can get on passenger jets with razor blades? \*\* [radio call] Duty manager to 701, fight next to the slick track. [/radio call] Because aircraft don’t get hijacked very often but many amusement parks can’t get through a weekend without some idiot that wants to pick a fight. It happens in our park all the time so you have constant reinforcement of the risk of us being attacked. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-seal-aircraft-cockpits/80979.md?page=3)