airliner parachutes and guns in the cockpit

"Craig Davidson" wrote in message ink.net...
Ted Huffmire wrote:
Why don't airliners have parachutes for
every passenger? Wouldn't the passengers
of the DC-10 that crashed in Sioux City, IA
have survived if they had been able to jump?
Would the TSA give a passenger hell for
trying to bring his own as a carry on?


Big John wrote in message ...
Ted

On occasion we tried to bring out chutes (in
duffle bags) into the cabin and store them in the overhead bins. We
were not permitted to do so and as I recall was told it would scare
the other passengers if I(we) did. Said there was some rule about no
chutes in cabin and they had to be checked in belly.


The no parachute rule might be a hold over from the D B Cooper hijacking
where he used a parachute to get away.

http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/...es/d-b-cooper/

Yes, CAL 727's had a "DB Cooper" switch that weathervaned in flight
preventing the rear airstair clamshell from being able to open. One
day I was jumpseating on my bro's flight and another flight mistook
that device for an open service door - what a disaster: Capt asked him
to investigate, my bro forgot to flip the pressurization to grd,
walked back and managed to open the "fridge" door in the back, and
blew everyone's ears out as it bumped and depressurized. (only
pressurized 200' below field on the ground.)

But in flight, true "plug" doors are nearly impossible to open if the
cabin has any decent differential going. There's thousands of psi
against that door. On D.B's jump he was familar with the physics of
things and forced the crew to depressurize before he went back to open
the door, manually pump the airstair slightly down, and then jump at
14K with the cash. Did he make it? Lots of disagreement on that one.
I think personally, the wake alone could have knocked him out, but
then I've never jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. Never will
either! :-) Seems like I saw a rock video of some nuts jumping out of
an old 727, but then to do that or make the DB movie, maybe they had
some kind of a turb spoiler attatched... still sounds nutty.

pacplyer
just ride it into the ground like a real man!