Pilots offering reassurance and pep talks

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Pilots offering reassurance and pep talks America's commercial airline pilots are taking steps to reassure passengers, in some cases urging them to confront would-be hijackers By MARTHA BRANNIGAN, SCOTT McCARTNEY and SUSAN CAREY The Wall Street Journal "Everyone should stand up and immediately throw things at him - pillows, blankets, books, shoes - anything that will throw him off balance and distract him. . . . Most important: Get a blanket over him and wrestle him to the floor. We'll land the plane at the nearest airport, and the authorities will take it from there." - American Airlines Capt. Jeff Rolfs, telling his passengers how to overtake a hijacker As an American Airlines flight prepared to leave New York's Kennedy International Airport for San Diego this week, its passengers got an extraordinary preflight briefing from the pilot."I want to thank you folks for being very brave and flying with us," Capt. Jeff Rolfs said over the Boeing 737's public-address system. "We don't have any new instructions from the federal government, so from now on, we're on our own."Silence fell over the half-full cabin. "I know you're worried about hijackers," the pilot continued, assuring everyone that security checks had ensured that no bombs could have been concealed aboard the plane. And he went on to give passengers a pep talk about how they could subdue anyone who might try to hijack the plane."Remember, there may be a few hijackers, but there are 60 of you," Rolfs reminded them.In recent days, variations of this speech have been circulating via e-mail from pilot to pilot, and some are incorporating it into their own preflight announcements.Before Sept. 11, a pilot expressing such sentiments might have been viewed as unbalanced and could have even faced disciplinary action from his airline. Today, however, such words capture the complicated mix of bravado and anxiety that has overtaken the men and women who fly the nation's passenger airplanes.Today, pilots say, their careers and reputations aren't the only things at stake when they enter the cockpit. They also face the prospect of making impossible choices between the lives of their passengers and the lives of those on the ground. Suggestions have poured in from all corners of the aviation world on what to do in the event of a hijacking, from somewhat standard regimes, such as using the crash ax in a cockpit to fight off attackers, to the wild - and already rejected - idea of equipping planes with fog grenades to allow passengers to surprise and overtake terrorists.These days, pilots are discussing whether or when it is appropriate to execute dives, sharp turns or other potentially dangerous aerial maneuvers to foil a hijacking. They and their unions and regulators are also considering such questions as how cockpit doors should be reinforced to withstand assaults and whether pilots should be allowed to carry firearms. Some pilots say that in the event of a hijacking they would instantly try to depressurize the passenger cabin, which would disable anyone without an oxygen mask. And before takeoff, many crews now confer about such security issues as procedures for their trips to the lavatory. All that has added to the tensions in the cockpit, making commercial flights seem more like military operations.Capt. Terry McVenes, a US Airways A320 pilot and a 22-year veteran of commercial piloting, was in a Minneapolis hotel the morning of Sept. 11. He switched on the television and caught the report of the first plane striking the World Trade Center. His phone rang, and he and the caller, another pilot, watched as the second plane hit the south tower. "It didn't take very long to figure out that life would be different, that there would be a complete change in the way airline pilots do business," McVenes said. Indeed, security would become the first order of business.In the 21/2 weeks since, many pilots have become more vigilant, have taken tighter control of their ships and are communicating more clearly with passengers and crew. Others, such as Rolfs, have gone even further, giving passengers instructions for fending off hijackers."If someone stands up and brandishes something, such as plastic knife and says, 'This is a hijacking,' here's what I want you to do," he said on his flight to San Diego. "Everyone should stand up and immediately throw things at him - pillows, blankets, books, shoes - anything that will throw him off balance and distract him. If he has a confederate or two, do the same with them. Most important: get a blanket over him and wrestle him to the floor. We'll land the plane at the nearest airport, and the authorities will take it from there."Then came this request: "Now, since we're a family for the next few hours, I ask you to turn to the person next to you, and in front of you, and introduce yourself and tell them a little about yourself, and ask them to do the same."Rolfs, a 13-year veteran of American and a former Air Force pilot, says he got his inspiration through e-mail from other pilots and departed from the standard briefing to bolster his passengers' confidence. He said he got four or five comments, all positive, from his passengers. One woman, he said, told him, "For the first time, I felt I had some control. I had a plan."Some fellow pilots question the wisdom of his approach. "It's stupid," he said one of them told him.Others think such instructions are superfluous or even dangerous. "The captain of that flight that crashed outside Pittsburgh didn't make that announcement, and people on the plane figured out what to do," said James Sovich, a captain with American Airlines who flew combat missions in Southeast Asia in the 1970s. "They could trick us once, but nobody is going to react the same in a hijacking again."A Delta Air Lines pilot who asked not to be named considers it dangerous to solicit vigilantism from passengers who aren't trained to respond to such situations. "What about passengers who are having epileptic seizures or are hallucinating or are on drugs? Do they deserve that fate?" he asked.Denis Waldron, a Delta 767-400 captain who has flown for the airline for more than 24 years, is adopting a more restrained approach than that suggested in the widely circulated e-mail messages. "The only thing I've been saying is to reassure them they are safe," he said. "I'm telling passengers that we've checked out the airplane, the passengers, the crew and the baggage."Capt. Robert A. Pastore, a 767 captain for TWA Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, says that in the future, if pilots become aware of a disturbance in the cabin, they aren't going to go back and check it out. Instead, they will put the airplane through "some pretty good oscillations. We can make you float, or we can make you sit down," depending on whether the plane abruptly accelerates or abruptly decelerates. Either would be "pretty uncomfortable" and would "immediately disorient" the passengers.It isn't known how many pilots have begun giving the security briefings to their passengers. A spokesman for American which is based in Fort Worth, said it hasn't banned pilots from reciting the e-mail message, but it has encouraged them to stick to regular passenger announcements. They can "be creative, be a leader and at the same time be reflective of what's going on. There is some leeway," the spokesman said.The government is trying to help. On Thursday, President Bush unveiled plans that include dramatically increasing the number of federal sky marshals, providing grants to strengthen cockpit doors and investing in new technology for aircraft security. The plans also include investing in cockpit video monitors to alert pilots to trouble in the cabin, developing transponders that can't be disconnected and developing technology to let air-traffic controllers take over and land distressed aircraft by remote control.But for many pilots, that's only the beginning. Pilots who for years were trained to cooperate with hijackers are suddenly considering an extraordinary range of defensive options. They range from initiatives as simple as taking martial-arts classes and telling flight attendants to leave beverage carts in front of the cockpit door to radical steps that might sacrifice their lives and those of passengers to prevent airplanes from becoming cruise missiles. http://web.star-telegram.com/content/fortworth/2001/09/29/topstory/fw010101-0929-XA004-1.htm