By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com
February 12, 2007
In the hope that armed pilots will discourage terrorism aloft, the United States wants foreign countries to grant permission for guns in cockpits.
The request involves only eight per cent of flights that originate in the U.S., since the remaining 92 per cent are domestic flights for which the issue has already been decided.
The Department of Homeland Security has allowed pilots to arm themselves for the last four years, but only if those pilots submitted to a week of training, requalified on the firearm twice per year, and kept the gun in a lockbox if they stepped out of the cockpit. They also have to apply for recertification on a periodic basis.
Not all pilots participate in the program but those who do are considered flight deck officers. Theres even an association called the Federal Flight Deck Officer Association and another called the Airline Pilots Security Alliance.
The latter group says permission to carry firearms should be extended to pilots who are sitting in the passenger cabin while en route to a destination where they are assigned to work.
In the meantime, joint efforts by Homeland Security and the U.S. State Department are not convincing other countries to cooperate. Sweden is among several countries seeking to keep planes free of weapons, which could be utilized by potential hijackers.
U.S. air marshals on both domestic and international flights already carry guns but, unlike pilots, ride in passenger cabins and keep their identities secret.
Foreign countries can ban armed marshals on arriving flights and can decide whether or not to provide their own armed marshals on flights headed to the United States. That is exactly what the U.S. is asking a reluctant Sweden to do.
To an effort to increase voluntary pilot participation, the Federal Air Marshals Service is opening regional training sites to expedite the required recertification in the program. In addition, it is replacing pilot ID cards with badges emblematic of law enforcement.
Although thousands of U.S. pilots already carry guns, none has ever fired one in flight.
