What an exercise in futility. What are they going to do...shoot the damn thing down or FORCE it to land. As both an ex AF fighter jock and as a retired airline captain having a fighter on your wing adds nothing to safety and enhances the possibility of tragedy.
NewsChannel 7 has learned a large group of students from the Spartanburg High Student Council was on a plane that made an emergency landing in Colorado Springs this afternoon because of unruly passenger. The passengers are now off the plane, some being interviewed by the FBI, according to school officials.
The spokeman at the airport in Colorado Springs says AirTran flight 39 was en route from Atlanta to San Francisco when an intoxicated man on board became arguementative (sic)and locked himself in the bathroom.
Students onboard the flight told NewsChannel 7, flight crews blocked the cockpit with food carts, and restrained the man.
The Captain announced an emergency landing, bringing the plane down.
Once on the ground, students say police rushed the plane, “taking the man to the ground” according to one student, before pulling him off the plane.
The FBI will be investigating the incident. Its not clear yet if the same plane will take off or passengers will leave on another one.
http://tinyurl.com/yzu796v
Good point, I was thinking along similar lines. At what point do they shoot an airliner down? Would they have pulled the trigger on the pantybomber flight? It was in final approach, too late to do anything anyway, and would have killed many innocent people for nothing.
The only feasible scenario is if an aircraft has been off course and unresponsive for a longer time, but even then it could just be two morons surfing the net on their laptops...
Under some circumstances, yes. To protect people on the ground from a flying bomb. After all, if the thing is going to be crashed into a building or stadium anyway, controlling the location of the crash isn't going to make much difference to those on the plane.
But not for a drunk.
The "drunken passenger" can be a diversion to get all cabin crew together and away from the passengers, and then incapacitate them. The rear bathroom area is a perfect location for that. A trained fighter does not need a gun for that; a piece of fishing line will do, or a rope, or bare hands, if you have enough accomplices. The three stewardesses are probably not ninjas working a second job.
Of course, if that happens, you can expect either a demand to change course (or else passengers will be killed) or an attempt to breach the cockpit door. The fighters are there to make sure the airplane isn't going where it shouldn't be going, regardless of who controls it and what motivates the pilots. Most pilots would be reluctant to let all passengers die, and so they may be negotiating with terrorists (even though cold logic may tell them to not do that.)
Don .... I wonder how the Falcons were armed. Was this just a show of force or were they ready to pop a sidewinder into the 737?