pilots refuse to fly with gun loons onboard

" Bogart " wrote in message ws.com...
On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 17:35:31 GMT, AH#49 "Asshole?#49"@ your.net
wrote:

Bogart wrote:

On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 15:01:43 GMT, "Scout"
wrote:

Yep, and that's what happened on the 4th plane. What I want to know is how
having a sky marshal on board would have made matters worse. Would those
passengers have died twice?

How would having a SM on board have helped?

Possibly by making sure that the Sky Marshall sits in first class, and
gets to shoot the first person he sees that attempts to enter the
Cockpit by force or without the "secret knock."

Sitting in first class just makes it easier for the hijackers. They'll
slaughter all the first class passengers first.

Like that will be an easy task, especially in light of your own
suggestion that the passengers wouldn't sit by while something like
this is going on.


The 4th plane didn't know
their fate and the fate of the other planes until long after the
terrorists had taken over the cockpit and killed the pilots. What
does the SM add that would have changed their final outcome?

He would be armed and would have (I hope) shot the ****ers dead trying
to get inside.
After all, who but somebody that was incredibly stupid would try to
enter the cockpit besides flight personnel?

You're forgetting the mindset of before 9/11. Without the knowledge
of the fate of the other hijacked planes, the 4 hijackers had total
control of that plane with box cutters. One hijacker said he had a
bomb strapped to himself. Does the SM take the chance and shoot? I
don't know.

The passengers who acted above the fields of Pennsylvania knew what
happened to the Trade Center Towers, and knew they were going to die
if they did nothing. Whether the air marshal takes a shot or not is
his call, based on circumstances no one anywhere can predict, but
given an opportunity with a hijacker in control of the cockpit
threatening to detonate a bomb, maybe a double-tap to the head would
do the trick.

And no, a bullet that pierces the hull of a plane will not suck all the
passengers out through it like Bond, James Bond said it would in
"Goldfinger" when he was chatting to Pussy Galore.

I don't believe I implied as such. There is ammunition you can shoot
inside a plane which will not even penetrate the outside of the
fuselage.

I love the idea of frangible ammo, but the problem with it has been
its lack of penetration before it fragments. The ammo needs to
penetrate reliably through the skull wall before it fragments into the
brain. Same with a torso shot; it needs to penetrate a heavy jacket,
sweater, shirt, undershirt, and breast bone and *then* fragment into
the thoracic cavity. Frangible ammo is a lot better in this regard
than it was several years ago, but it occasionally suffers from
fragmenting on contact, which diffuses the kinetic energy that should
be used to penetrate the target. The risk of damaging electrical
systems and hydraulics is real, but limited - likelihood of causing
terminal damage is minimal. The risk of hitting another passenger is
also real and much more likely. Frangible ammo reduces the likelihood
of causing an unintentional fatal injury due to overpenetration and
ricochet, but the danger of an unintentional death or dismemberment
still exists in the dynamics of an actual shooting. A piece of advice
for the air marshals, or anybody else carrying on board: Don't act
until you are damn sure you have to, and confront the situation with
enough force to end it as quickly as possible.

Teek