How bout letting American Citizens exercise their God given inalienable rights?

Uh, that doesn't prevent the AIRLINE, which is NOT a governmental entity, from banning weapons onboard.

Just making that point. . .

There must be no possibility of unauthorized access of anyone to the cockpit. It can be achieved by having two sets of doors with a small corridor in between. At least one door must always be locked.

The doors must be strong enough to stand up.

There should be no possible access of a hijacker to the cockpit under any circumstances.

Absolutely correct- it beats me as to why this simple precaution was not taken during the rash of hijackings in the 1970's. There is NO REASON for the pilot to leave the flight deck, or for flight attendants, deadheading crew, or tourists to be up there. A simple reinforced door, locked from the inside, would go a long way towards improving safety.

This is a concern not only because of terrorists, but the number of drunk, drugged, or crazy people who fly these days. It is only by luck that several airliners have not already been lost to these morons, with their misnamed "air rage".

Airliners are more like Greyhound busses now- the same lowlife's who can buy a cross-country ticket on the bus can afford one on a plane- and you don't know who you are sitting next to. There are several good websites on this- type "air rage" into Google and see what comes up. It will amaze you.

A simple reinforced door will not do. When the pilot leaves to for the bathroom, or when food reaches him, a hijacker is ready to pounce.

Two doors separated by corridor system will prevent unauthorized entry at all times.

I am baffled by the concept of "further disarming" passengers and flight crews; as a "safety measure". When boxcutters and mace are all that is needed to hijack a jumbo jet, outlawing scissors and knitting needles on flights is SILLY.

What's next? Making former Senator Kerry check his "leg" as luggage?

A new "pre-takeoff" annoucement that urges passengers to fight highjackers with everything they can think of would make more sense. Allowing US Military Members, Law Enforcement and selected others to travel "ARMED" would make much more sense.

For TOO MANY YEARS government told rape victims to be "passive". Our Government , finally, have learned that didn't work. Now, "Government" seems ready to FORCE "High-Jacked Passengers" to be even more "PASSIVE".

LET US DEFEND OUR SKIES AND OUR LIVES.

Corridor system with camera, great idea.

I'm very much in favour of the Sky Marshal proposal; do the math and a $1 fee per passenger would more than cover the costs.

1 x 200 people on board = $ 200 / 5 hour flight.

Not bad pay at all even after agency fees, especially since you could do two flights a day, or maybe one five hour and one three.

Of course you'd be stationed all over the place, but that's the same situation cabin attendants have and would be treated in a similar way.

Perhaps a cabin attendant already employed could be armed and used for this purpose?

D

European planes overhead compartments lock prior to takeoff and aautomatically unlock after landing.

And what locks the carry on baggage stored under the seat in front of you?

Frisk passengers prior to boarding

What, no body cavity search?

This may be extremley far fetched and assuming we're not overly concerned with civil liberties here but passenger safety...

Assuming the cockpit can be sealed effectively, why not install some sort of system that would fill the cabin with some sort of knock-out gas? It could render everyone in the cabin unconcious and still allow the pilot to fly the plane. The gas could only be enacted by the pilot and perhaps maybe a simultaneous release must be used by ground control. At a moment of crisis, the gas is released, the pilot lands safely at the nearest airport, security officials board the plane and secure the hijackers, and then the passengers are revived.

do: allow one flight crew member to carry a concealed hand-gun

don't: probe every honest law abiding citizen who is just looking to travel form point a to point b

Mandatory firearm training for Commercial pilots and mandatory cockpit firearms.

Also, "deputize" Citizens to be sky marshalls during flights (with the same training as professional sky marshall's). Let citizens, with the appropriate training, background check, etc, defend themselves.

Terrorists need to know that they are bringing knives to a gun fight.

How about a cabin teargas dispersal system into the passenger cabin that can be activiated from the cockpit? Those in their seats would have access to oxygen through the drop-down masks -- but those out of their seats would be overcome.

Also, a video system with a monitor in the cockpit so that the pilot crew can see what is happening without having to open the door, or be notified by the flight attendants?

There is NO REASON for the pilot to leave the flight deck, or for flight attendants, deadheading crew, or tourists to be up there. A simple reinforced door, locked from the inside, would go a long way towards improving safety.

There are several reasons for pilots to leave the flight deck. #1 and #2 come to mind. Inspecting airborne mechanical abnormalities (flap, slats, spoilers, engine, etc.) is another reasonable reason to leave the flight station. On long flights, flag carriers are manned with 3 to 5 pilots and some fly, some eat, and some sleep. Flight attendants need to be able to come up to the cabin to attend to the needs of the pilots, crew, and passengers. Face to face communications are imperative to operational safety.

As far as the "jumpseat" goes, there are several people with legitimate business to be in the flight station. Among them are FAA inspectors, US Secret Service, Instructor pilots, deadheading or observation crew, dispatchers, etc.

Tourists are never in the cockpit. To imply that they are is irresponsible.

BTW, cockpit doors are locked from the inside.

Now, if you have a duress situation, the pilots should never leave the flight station. The events of 9/11 should reinforce why that is so. If you have a person trying to force his way into a flight station, then the pilot has a few optioins (none pretty): A series of abrupt positive and negative "Gs" would likely break the necks of anyone without a seatbelt. The crash axe firmly planted into the cranium of anyone forcing their way into the cockpit would also be another.

No busywork stuff. Does denying curbside check-ins accomplish anything?

Not much.

However, with curbside check-in, you could check a bag and present your ID, get a boarding pass with the stamp/checkoff showing that you ID had been checked. You could then go anywhere and give your boarding pass to anyone, and if they made the flight, the would not be checked for ID.

Mostly, this prevents people from selling 'non-transferrable' tickets at the airport. It also keeps the Airline's records a bit more accurate.

Of course, if you can still do this at the inside ticket counter and give your boarding pass to someone else, then no security is gained.

Also, the knife thing won't work unless there are no knives or boxcutters available past the security screening checkpoints, even to theives. That means no knives or boxcutters anywhere in the gate areas. None in restaurants or shops in those areas.

All this will do is make sure that if a hijacker gets a weapon on a plane, there will be nobody even minimally armed with defensive weapons to take him out. You'll have to stop the hijacker with your bare hands now. In theory, he'll have only bare hands, too.

Personally, I'd rather have a knife fight than a bare hands fight.

These security measures were hastily implemented, and they don't recognize the reality that the rules for hijackers changed Tuesday morning. Even the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania had some experience with the new rules.

The old rules said that when a hijacker said "Do what I say and nobody gets hurt," you did what he said and (almost) nobody got hurt.

The new rules are that when a hijacker says, "Do what I say and nobody gets hurt," every adult passenger on the plane will attack him and try to kill him before he kills them.

Where the previous odds for hijackers were 4 or 5 (hijackers) against none (resisting passengers or crew), now the odds are 4 or 5 (hijackers) against 100+ (bascally all passengers and crew). What happened Tuesday can't happen again unless the hijacker overpowers everyone on the plane.

This may be extremley far fetched and assuming we're not overly concerned with civil liberties here but passenger safety...

Assuming the cockpit can be sealed effectively, why not install some sort of system that would fill the cabin with some sort of knock-out gas? It could render everyone in the cabin unconcious and still allow the pilot to fly the plane.

Great, then a hijacker only needs to create a big enough commotion in the passenger compartment and put his gas mask or oxygen supply on. Then, no passengers will be able to subdue him.

From Tuesday forward, passengers aren't going to be passive for hijackers. It doesn't matter how much you try to disarm the passengers, they'll try to kill the hijackers now.

BRAINSTORMING IDEAS. Don't expect all to be practical. But some might trigger practical ideas from others. This is the best I can do off the top of my head/spirit.

1) PERHAPS THERE WOULD BE A CHEMICAL COMPOUND THAT COULD INCAPACITATE THOSE BETWEEN TWO SECURE DOORS ATTEMPTING TO FORCE OPEN THE LAST DOOR TO THE COCKPIT. IF GOOD PEOPLE WERE INCAPACITATED, THEN AN ANTIDOTE COULD BE ADMINISTERED BY COCKPIT OR OTHER PERSONNEL FROM THE REAR OF THE PLANE. Not fool proof but one option.

2) Perhaps automatically filling that small passageway between two very secure doors of umpteen layers of kevlar, Lexan etc. perhaps the small passage way could be automatically filled with very sticky, incapacitating foam after stunning temporarily blinding lights and sound went off as well.

3) Have mikes that could not be turned off automatically turned on and fed to the flight recorders as well as to air traffic control whenever any 2 of 4 to 6 monitored flight personnel's heart rates and breathing rose above a fitting threshhold.

4) a very sticky stowed net in the ceilings every X seats (say 4-6 rows) that could be deployed by any two adults on opposite sides of the asile as chosen by flight personnel and/orticketing agents under software control from seat sound etc. consoles.

5) Remotely deployable darts from the ceiling every X feet. with instantly debilitating chemical compounds. Deployable by flight personnel and 8-20 designated passengers chosen by flight personnel and/or ticketing agents.

6) I suppose we could have nudist flights but I don't think that would fly. . . so how about everyone wearing simple white robes for a mandatory fee? With only designated pre orderd kits in the cabin except for carefully screened reading material? That is, no carry on unless locked for the flight in the overheads--placed there by airline personnel and locked by them but not unlockable by them until the flight was finished. Dr's could have their bags in a special overhead in case needed.

7) Incapacitating sound. Flight personnel would already be wearing ear plugs that only required a finger bump to deploy more effectively. Other passengers and terrorists would be in enough pain to be incapacitated giving personnel enough time to disarm.

8) Kevlar, etc. blankets or partitions deployable to isolate persons with bombs--as well as ceilings and floors with various materials capable of taking such shock waves and explosive forces.

9) Vital signs monitoring of two cockpit personnel could cock a sort of deadman's lever/button that would then be deployable in sequence or unison by any two cockpit personnel to crash the jet or at least bring it down to a controlled terminal descent unalterably rather than be controlled into a greater devastation target.

10) Sophisticated voice analysis software would listen for key phrases and keywords used in such terrorist hijackings and impose unalterable limitations on fuel and other controls severely limiting the plane's functioning until it landed at the nearest airport or crashed into a field or highway.

11) aromas causing diminshed agitation etc. could be deployed.

12) Flight personnel could be taught magician distraction etc. techniques to regain control.

13) Prayer networks could be instantly activated via the net and cell phones.

14) Deploy oxygen masks and then blow a section of the roof off near the cockpit. if done at key moments, those not belted would be sucked out.

15) Flight personnel could quietly issue blow guns with darts with either debilitating or totally poisonous compounds to carefully selected passengers early in the flight.

16) In the event that terrorists were trapped between two sealed more or less blast proof doors in a short passage way--blow the floor out and provide them an instant elavator down. A replacement floor could then automatically be moved into place. . . .maybe a trapdoor sort of thing.

17) At a signal carefully selected passengers would be aware that their water, 7up etc. were actually eye blinding chemical liquid for tossing in terrorists eyes. . . . or some such for burning intolerably terrorists skin even through fabric.

18) Flight personnel or selected passenger deployable wires, bars, tazer darts to the ankles or some such to trip terrorists walking down the aisle.

19) Tazer darts deployable from the ceiling.

20) Cockpit tazar darts deployable by foot pedal cocked by a codeword said by cockpit personnel or some such.

21) Auto pilot automatically taking plane to nearest prior designated airport/military base without recourse by any personnel on the plane. Deployed by codewords, foot button, vital signs monitoring and/or some combination of the above according to fuzzy logic rules.

22) sophisticated software perhaps with flight control camera remote control takes plane to nearest sparsely traveled highway unalterably.

23) TOTAL COMMUNICATION BLOCK on plane receiving any communications from anyone if terrorists in control.

24) Training of appropriate pesonnel in unconscious hypnotic voice tones and cadences. 25) overwhelmingly intense nausea producing light strobes, sprays, moist towelettes, etc. Hope others can springboard off some of these. Is there someone such ideas could be fwded to who might be able to sort them and do something with any useful?

FLOODING THE FLOOR WITH LIGHTWEIGHT BUT STRONG MARBLES

As a child traveling on transatlantic flights there were a couple of times that the flight attendents allowed me to "Go see the pilots" -- they let me in the cockpit for a few minutes and chatted with me, etc.

Doubt that's gonna happen ever again though.