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Fight hijackers with fists and feet, but not firearms, FAA says
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Fight hijackers with fists and feet, but not firearms, FAA says Saturday, January 19, 2002By DAVE HIRSCHMANCOX NEWS SERVICEATLANTA -- Airline crews should fight hijackers with their fists and feet, assistance from passengers, and the aircraft itself -- but for now, not with guns, the Federal Aviation Administration says in new guidelines.In a departure from decades-old policy that presumed cooperating with hijackers was the best way to avoid tragedy, the FAA now encourages immediate resistance.Pilots and flight attendants should take aggressive steps in confronting unruly passengers and terrorist takeover attempts, according to the new guidelines issued yesterday."The biggest change is a shift from passive to active resistance," said FAA spokesman Christopher White. "Any passenger disturbance should be regarded as suspicious."Airlines have 60 days to submit new security policies to the FAA. Once the agency approves, they'll have six months to train crews.Flight attendants are likely to get self-defense training, and pilots could practice, during recurrent training, throwing attackers off balance by flying erratically or depressurizing the passenger cabin.The guidelines take no position on whether guns should be allowed in airline cockpits, as the Air Line Pilots Association has suggested. United Airlines plans to install electronic stun guns in the cockpits of its jets if it gets FAA approval.The new FAA guidelines appear to formalize strategies flight crews had developed independently in the four months since suicide terrorists commandeered four U.S. airliners.Bill Kowalski, an Atlanta DC-9 captain, said his preflight crew briefings now include information on how to resist terrorist threats."I'm not going to say exactly what we'd do," he said. "But it's safe to say it won't involve any kind of cooperation."Quick action by American Airlines flight attendants and passengers thwarted terrorism suspect Richard Reid from using explosives hidden in his shoes to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic in December.Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has told flight attendants it will begin offering voluntary, paid self-defense classes designed to teach them to disarm, break free of or disable attackers. AirTran Airways also is offering voluntary self-defense classes for flight attendants.Separately yesterday, the new Transportation Security Agency said the federal employees who will screen passengers and baggage will have almost twice as much training as those now at airport checkpoints.New screeners will spend 40 hours in a classroom and then have 60 hours of on-the-job training. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/55066_crews19.shtml
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PC=BS