KAREN WALKER & DAVID FIELD / WASHINGTON DC
The US Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) has started a national campaign to allow pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit by delivering a petition with 44,000 signatures to Congress. Meanwhile United Airlines is training its 9,000 pilots to use Taser stun guns despite uncertainty over whether they will be approved for cockpit use.
Congress had originally delegated a proposal for such a measure to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), but congressional impatience with the new agency has caused House Transportation Committee chairman Don Young to bring a bill that would let security-cleared pilots who wished to do so carry firearms on duty.
If this were approved, the pilots would be trained at federal expense as TSA deputies. Pilots and their carriers, which would have to grant the pilots permission, would have immunity from damages.
Meanwhile, speaking at the World Airline Training Conference in Dallas, Texas, United's director of flight standards and quality control, John Szakach, said it was mandatory for all its pilots to be prepared to use Tasers. But the Department of Transportation (DoT) is concerned about potential hazards - Tasers emit 50,000V bursts of power via two fishhook-style probes attached to 21ft (6m) wires.
United has performed ground and flight testing on all its types to check for systems interference. Szakach says they have fired the Taser directly into cathode ray tube displays, circuit-breaker panels, flight controls and all other potentially sensitive aircraft systems with no effect. "We even took the probes and wrapped them around the fly-by-wire systems, then fired the gun during an entire autoland with no problems," says Szakach.
Source: Flight International
