I suggested in another thread that the flight attendants and the cockpit personnel be issued Tasers.
Same theory. But the picture of 50 tranquilizer darts going right at some angry, drunk Grandma’s bent-over, fat ass shitting on the beverage cart is just too precious.
And I won’t be able to get it out of my head for a week.
If I may be serious for a moment…
Forgetting the likelihood that terrorists go after a softer target, thereby wasting your anti-airline-hijacker efforts, I think the idea is probably not as “100% effective” as was claimed.
If the terrorists infiltrate the airline industry, they could find work as the plane maintenance technician. They could sabotage the “release weapons” buttons that the pilots use, rendering your efforts useless.
Oh, but now airlines test the button as part of the pre-flight safety check?
The terrorists hook a remote switch to disable the button. Or they wear clothing that prevent darts from penetrating. Or they replace the darts in the weapons with something harmless. Or they take out the springs or let the air out of the CO2 cartridges so the guns don’t fire that flight.
Nothing, but nothing, is 100% effective. (It was mentioned elsewhere that not flying is the only thing 100% effective)
Um… and what happens if some kid decides to try to take
apart the locking mechanism some time during the 5 hour flight? And seriously, do you think that shooting darts in an airplane is a good idea? Too many hit the bad guy, and he croaks from an OD. Too many hit the good guy standing next to the bad guy, and he also croaks from an OD.
And we are talking about darts here, right? Who wants to own up to it when the baby in the lap of the woman next to the bad guy takes a dart in the face?
Also, just as a practical issue, why couldn’t you do the same decoy trick already mentioned elsewhere and have one bad guy get up and act threatening so the guns are released. While everybody shoots at him, his buddies pull their new airline issued weapons (deadly, by the by. Want to take a dart in the temple from close range to test it?) and wait until all the John Waynes have gotten their aggression out on the token bad guy before taking over the plane.
What, did somebody beat you with the stupid stick when you were a child?
Tenebras
A worrying development today was that one of the four people arrested in the UK today was one exam away from being able to fly commercial jet airliners.
Admittedly he wouldn’t have been eligible to fly jets in the US or Europe but it makes you think…
Your objection is, of course, valid but my plan would operate in conjunction with high-level security on the ground. All this may make it so difficult to hijack a plane that the terrorists won’t even try.
Again, possible, but it would require a lot more planning by the terrorists - they’d have to develop some kind of gadget that can over-ride the “button” without affecting anything else electrical on the plane.
They’d have to smuggle this “gadget” onto the plane. So this assumes they’d need someone on the inside (such as a baggage handler).
This all means there is much more chance of them being caught.
And, in any case, the pilot could have a manual over-ride switch in the event of system failure for any reason.
They would still have exposed areas such as their head and, amongst all of the passengers, there would be a few people who are close enough (or who just have good aim) to be able to get in a head shot.
The terrorists could all pull balaclavas over their heads but I think that would start to make them look somewhat suspicious.
And people would of course jump them (once they realised what their intentions are) and pull off the balaclavas.
All this implies that they are able to gain access to the aircraft prior to take off. This was extremely difficult even before 9/11 and would, I expect, be almost impossible now.
Tenebras, obviously the locking mechanism would childproof. The darts would not be lethal darts so death would be unlikely. But if one or two deaths occurred on a hijacked flight this would be unfortunate but better that than 200 deaths.
I said earlier that the guns would only have one (or maybe two) darts in them. Not everyone will fire the guns in the first volley - there will still be plenty of darts left to deal with any more terrorists.
A guy in our local paper wrote an op ed piece suggesting 3 things.
sealing off the cockpit so that you can only get in from the outside of the plane. The pilots would only need a hatch.
No communication is possible between the cabin and cockpit. There can be a hidden panic button for emergencies in which case the pilot lands at the closest airport.
Some type of mechanisim preventing the use of radios or cell phones once the cabin is pressurized. That way, any hijackers can’t call to the FAA tower and force the pilot to do anything through them.
I also like the idea of arming the pilots. We trust them to fly the plane, we can trust them with a gun.
Absolutely NOT. Don’t you remember that the passengers on hijacked planes #3 and #4 found out about their situation via cell phone calls? Cell phone calls that were made possible because the people on #1 and #2 called out to say they’d been hijacked?
Actually, another genius already came up with this idea in another forum. Click here.
Yes but I think you’ll find I came up with the idea 6 days before him so I was the first genius.
I stand corrected.
You’re an original.
CapnCrude, #1 and #2 would prevent the need for #3.
The issues raised here are detracting us from the more important problems facing the Earth…that is, the existence of UFO’s and other alien invasions. And the plight of airline food…And the fact that maybe some people would rather fly naked and be a lover rather than a fighter…We would be closer for this choice, and, we’d laugh harder and longer…
Granny on the snack cart …woohoo!
Be aware, Be real, LIVE FOR PEACE
Why is this a worse situation? You have a cabin full of snoozing passengers (who can’t scream, be afraid, wet their pants, etc.) and the bad guys still can’t get into the cabin.
Then we’ll need to put all infants and their guardians on spacial flights. (“United flight 155’s Screaming Baby Express to Baltimore is now boarding at gate 15…”)
But seriously folks, the airline could supply these things. Diapers & formula is fairly standard stuff (right?). Any special request items would go through baggage inspection and be thoroughly screened. Toys will simply be disallowed. Infants will scream because of cabin pressure changes no matter what kind of colorful rattles the parent shakes in front of it.
Especially since we knew the dart wouldn’t kill, it would be all that much more tempting to use.
Many people would object to losing the “freedom” to walk wherever/whenever and the air marshal would soon get really tired of unlocking people just so they could stand up and reach into the overhead compartments. On long flights you would have a half dozen people whining to get up & stretch at any one time. The next day’s headlines:
[ul]Air Marshal goes berserk, shoots 27 who just wanted to stretch[/ul]
$$$
Dart guns is a high tech, high maintenance, high cost solution. The best solution so far is tightening security at the airport (especially baggage screening) and sealing the cockpit. As I have said probably a dozen times since 9/11, there is no reason why an armored car should be more secure than a passenger airplane.
Just put all passengers to sleep, and wake them up when they get to the destination. Didn’t they do that in The Fifth Element?
Arming hundreds of panicked, untrained individuals with dart guns in an emergency situation sounds like recipe for disaster, but I’ll bite.
Your group of hijackers declares that they are taking over the plane and immediately kills all the stewards/stewardesses to prevent them from releasing the guns. Unless they’re really fast, the hijackers won’t likely make it to the cockpit (especially if they keep the damn cockpit hatch closed like they should) so the cockpit crew presses the panic button, and suddenly you have a dozen hijackers against a few hundred dart gun wielding passengers. Several tactics come to mind:
Use passengers and any still-living stewards/stewardesses as shields. Coupled with protective clothing, this should provide plenty of cover.
The “take it for the team” decoy approach. In this kind of situation, people are jumpy and will shoot. A few of the cooler-headed passengers might carefully take aim and fire, but by and large, most of the panicked passengers are likely to draw their gun and fire blindly in the general direction of the hijackers.
“I’ve got a bomb.” I’ve read all the speculative threads on this board on how hijackings should be handled by passengers; the general consensus seems to be “rush them and take them out at all costs.” A sound approach, in theory. In practice, what happens is that untrained people freeze; they panic as their minds slowly grasp the situation at hand, and only then do they act. However, the hijackers presumably have everything planned out and are ready to act instantly. This confers a huge advantage to the hijackers and gives them extra time to either carry out #1 or #2, or possibly even rush the cockpit.
In the end, I think you’re still left with the “rush the hijackers” tactic; in which case, why do you need to arm the passengers in the first place?
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
–The Princess Bride
xanakis, you aren’t related to Wildest Bill by any chance, are you?
Ummm… hello?
He wouldn’t be eligible to fly in the US or Europe?
Since when has this stopped a hijacker?
“I have a bomb! I’m taking over these controls.”
“Just a minute, sonny, this is America. Do you have a licence to fly in America?”
“Damn! All I have is this qualification from an English flight school.”
“Please return to your seat. Until you get an American pilot’s licence, I don’t want any more trouble out of you, mister.”
“Sorry” :::hangs head, droops, returns to seat:::
I think the infiltrators are more likely to be maintenance/cleaning/catering staff than pilots. How many people are allowed access to a plane between flights? There must be a lot of mechanics and people like that involved. They’re the ones you would suspect of sabotaging the “release tranq guns”, not the pilot.
Methinks someone’s been watching too many action/adventure films. Perhaps someone ought to take the time to do a little research about dart guns, anesthesias, airplanes and hijackings before one comes up with such hare-brained ideas.
Esprix
Cabin air should be mixed with NO2. For all flights. No problem.
Has someone mentioned just releasing the cabin pressure so that the only people who don’t pass out are those strapped to an oxygen mask. The technology is already in place on the airplanes, and I think it would be effective enough to keep hijackers distracted/disabled long enough to be overtaken.
I can see that it wouldn’t work in some cases (like below a certain altitude) but for the majority of the time and for the incidents on Sept. 11 I think it would have worked.