Officials say al-Qaida operatives may be fully trained airline pilots

MSNBC.com ^ | 12/22/03 | NBC

[chito]

PARIS/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The French government asked Air France on Wednesday to cancel Paris-Los Angeles flights over Christmas after the United States provided information al Qaeda may have "infiltrated" the carrier.

Air france is a joke.. i used to fly them once a month from LAX to Paris and on both sides of the pond there security is a joke and inconsitent, on one flight i met a woman sitting next to me..turns out she was married to the pilot, next thing i know i'm sitting in the cockpit of a 747 going over the pole....with in arms length of the crew. so much for security and procedure...so AQ infiltrating the airline does not seem far fetched...

[LenS]

No.

But the passengers can only fight back if they know there is a problem (and if they have some time). If the pilot is compromised, then the passengers won't learn that they're in trouble until it's too late.

The heroic passengers on that flight knew right away that there was a problem because the hijackers came from among them. And they had a lot of time to react which they bravely did.

A smart Al Qaeda planner using compromised pilots would use trans-oceanic flights against targets near the coastline and their normal flight path. That way passengers looking out the window couldn't detect the flight variance until impact was almost near.

[hershey]

They're going to have to profile air crews. Probably already are, just not talking publically. Hitlery and the Dwarves might complain.

[lchoro]

Saudi Arabia has arrested two Islamic suicide pilots who were preparing to fly two light aircraft into a packed British Airways (BA) jet, a British Sunday newspaper said, quoting a senior opposition politician.

The suspected suicide pilots were arrested in the last few weeks after they were found red-handed with aircraft loaded with explosives near Saudi Arabia's main airport in the capital Riyadh, The Mail on Sunday said.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/28/1072546397709.html