Posted on 09/12/2001 4:19:38 AM PDT by Jalapeno
Sept. 11, 2001, 11:25PM
NEW YORK -- While most Americans are familiar with safety procedures designed to protect them on airplanes, many don't know that passengers are sometimes allowed to carry knives on board.
That simple fact, published on the Federal Aviation Administration's Web site, likely played a role in at least three of the hijackings that ended in disaster Tuesday.
Barbara Olson, wife of U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, was on the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon. She told her husband during a cell phone call from the plane that the hijackers were using knife-like instruments.
Federal regulations on such weaponry state: "FAA guidelines allow knives with blades up to 4 inches. However, state and local laws may restrict the carriage of smaller knives in a public airport. We recommend that you contact the airline to determine any additional restrictions it might apply."
Two AP journalists who travel frequently said they themselves have dropped Swiss Army knives into plastic containers as they walked through airport metal detectors, only to pick them up afterward, and carry them aboard.
American Airlines, citing the government's ongoing investigation into four jetliner crashes, said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on its policies.
The airline's Web site suggests that passengers check with someone before packing weapons such as "firearms, ammunition, gunpowder, mace, tear-gas, or pepper spray." The message does not specifically mention knives, but says items classified as dangerous goods "may be restricted for transport by air."
A spokeswoman for Air Canada said her company does not allow knives as carry-on property, and a former official with British Airways said the same.
British Airways often collects knives from passengers who attempt to bring them on board. The crew then stores the blades until the flight lands.
The former British official, who now works as a travel consultant and spoke on condition of anonymity, said he learned during 18 years in the airline industry that carriers based abroad are usually more stringent about security than their domestic competitors.
While firearms are not permitted in passenger areas, some airlines do allow them to be stored in the baggage compartment.
Delta, for example, allows customers one item of "shooting equipment" as part of the passenger's free checked baggage.
The list of allowable weapons includes rifles, pistols, and up to 11 pounds of ammunition. An excess baggage charge is levied on any passenger bringing more than one of these items.
Customers checking a weapon must present it, unloaded, to a Delta employee, who is supposed to make sure that it is in a locked, hard-sided, crushproof container to be stored below in the hold.
I do this everytime that I fly and have never had difficulty with any airline. SouthWest Airlines gave me my pistol case a few years ago and I continue to use it.
This deserves to be said again and again.
It's the evil pocketknives will not get it this time, we need some real, hard questions and answers.
Time for logic: If 10% of the passengers and the crew had been armed yesterday, what is the WORST that could have happened?
Answer: What happened anyway. However, what are the odds of what happened yesterday of occurring if only 10% of the passengers and crew had been armed? More likely the planes would have been lost -- but over more harmless territory.
There is even the possibility that the planes could have been saved (and the hijackers subdued and/or killed) if ONLY 10% of the passengers and crew had been armed.
Yesterday gave the lie to ALL arguments against allowing passengers and crewmembers to fly armed.
Its time to dispose of this kind of garbage philosophy. These thugs know this is the prevailing way of doing things in the USA. To many people want the government to do everything for them. Screw it! The people have to take some responsibility for our own safety. The song says we are "the home of the brave", not a nation of sheep. Those people are laughing at us.
I said it on another thread, but I will repeat it here -- you do not need weapons to beat a man with a knife. All you need is determination and a willingness to accept injury in order to accomplish your mission.
If the terrorists overpowered the crew with just knives, then there was a massive failure on the part of the airlines. The cockpit doors should have been left closed and locked, even at the expense of a flight attendent.
For that matter, the flight attendents are better armed than a gang with knives. They have all sorts of weapons at their disposal, including pots of boiling water, the meal cart, metal shafts that can be used as billies, and even those demonstration seat belts they use at the beginning of a flight. (Fasten the buckle, hold the strap and swing the buckle end. It gives you longer reach than a knife.) You can even use that seat cushion "flotation device" as a shield.
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
I think I'm going to be putting it in my checked baggage from now on, though. I'm flying Sunday.
It was a small Swiss-Army Knife with the blade, scissors, nail file, tweezers and some sort of platic fingernail cleaning thing. It was gift from a friend and had his family company's name on it. When he gave it to me he said, "No one should be without a knife." He routinely have them to friends. I always traveled with it; I still have it today some nine years later in the desk next to me, always close at hand.
My roommate in college always carried a Leatherman. Given he was flying to and from Alaska to the lower-48, he had no trouble with airport security either.
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