Why does a pilot need to bring a weapon to hijack a plane?

**Uesugi Kenshin** · 09-21-2007, 21:41

If you are flying a plane you can't hijack it anymore. It is your plane....You could "steal" it by flying it to a destination other than the one on the flight plan, but I'm pretty confident the word "to hijack" is being used improperly here.

Anyway it's really dumb to do anything but a bomb check of any luggage they stow on the plane, since that theoretically could include something packed by someone else. All the pilot would have to do is slam the throttle to full and put the plane into a dive and you've got all the effects of a bomb without the hassle of learning to build one, or building one.

**drone** · 09-21-2007, 22:13

If a pilot wanted to crash a large plane into something, he would most likely need a weapon to keep control of the cockpit. The co-pilot and nav/engineer at the least would notice something amiss from the course deviations, and would have to be dealt with. There may be rules about minimum number of crew in the cockpit at all times, to pull off a kamikaze the other crew would have to be killed, subdued, or forced out of the cockpit. It might piss off the crew, but it's probably for the best.

**Husar** · 09-21-2007, 22:32

Originally Posted by drone

The co-pilot and nav/engineer at the least would notice something amiss from the course deviations, and would have to be dealt with.

You wish.

I heard a transcript from some flight were both Pilot and Copilot were busy fixing some really minor thing and only noticed that something was wrong about a second or so before the crash. Just keep the guy busy and if you're good he won't notice a thing.

**Uesugi Kenshin** · 09-22-2007, 00:21

Originally Posted by Husar

You wish.

I heard a transcript from some flight were both Pilot and Copilot were busy fixing some really minor thing and only noticed that something was wrong about a second or so before the crash. Just keep the guy busy and if you're good he won't notice a thing.

Plus if you slam the throttle forward and point the nose of a large commercial airliner at the ground the chance of it getting out of that maneuver is probably pretty slim. The weight and speed behind it would be pretty fatal alone, throw it into a bit of a spin and the plane has a very good chance of ending up scattered all over the ground.

Of course the copilot probably has some training at getting out of spins of death, but I doubt they worry too much about that sort of thing with commercial airliners since there are few to no instances when you should be able to get into a spin when flying one of those babies from what I know.

**HoreTore** · 09-22-2007, 06:44

There's no need for a bomb check either. They have everything they need to build a bomb in the cockpit(or areas they have easy access to).

The axe is just one of the things they have there...

Screening pilots is simply idiotic. They have everything they could ever wish for in the plane. A simple knock/axe on the head of the co-pilot, and they can do whatever they want. If the pilot turns out to be a terrorist, no security checkpoint in the world will be able to stop it.

Unless, of course, they come up with a way to screen our brains....

**HoreTore** · 09-22-2007, 06:50

Originally Posted by drone

If a pilot wanted to crash a large plane into something, he would most likely need a weapon to keep control of the cockpit. The co-pilot and nav/engineer at the least would notice something amiss from the course deviations, and would have to be dealt with. There may be rules about minimum number of crew in the cockpit at all times, to pull off a kamikaze the other crew would have to be killed, subdued, or forced out of the cockpit. It might piss off the crew, but it's probably for the best.

As stated, he has the weapon. If you think an axe is too unwieldy, then a fist to the head is more than sufficient to knock someone out.

**Del Arroyo** · 09-24-2007, 19:51

If you can't trust the god-blessed pilot, then who in the god-blessed hell can you trust???

**dknight** · 09-25-2007, 01:32

Originally Posted by Del Arroyo

If you can't trust the god-blessed pilot, then who in the god-blessed hell can you trust???

Alway trust god (or gods, depending on your religious)

Anyway, from a security point of view, the pilot may not be a preventable thread to his/her own aircraft, but he/she can be a security thread for others. Without pilot screening, some terrorist an force a pilot to take weapons into the secure areas, which can be retrieved later by other terrorists for the hijacking of a real target. Or being the pilot of a small private airplane to hijack a passenger jet.

Of course, this assumes that the secure area in the airport is really secure. I read articles showing that during the night, there are time period when the secure areas are opened for all without screening, and parked planes are almost accessible to all airport employee.