No One Could Have Imagined…
Update: The weapon involved in the incident was a Heckler and Koch USP [universal self-loading] 40-caliber pistol, which has multiple safeties to prevent accidental discharges. Someone was screwing around with the weapon and pulled the trigger. One of the reasons for buying the HK USP is because it is so safe to carry.
WCNC in Charlotte reports: Pilot’s gun discharges on US Airways flight
CHARLOTTE, N.C.– A gun carried by a US Airways pilot accidentally discharged during a flight from Denver to Charlotte Saturday, according to a statement released by the airline.
The statement said the discharge happened on Flight 1536, which left Denver at approximately 6:45 a.m. and arrived in Charlotte at approximately 11:51 a.m.
The Airbus A319 plane landed safely and none of the flight’s 124 passengers or five crew members was injured, according to the statement. It was a full flight. An airline spokeswoman said the plane has been taken out of service to make sure it is safe to return to flight.
A Transportation Safety Administration spokeswoman reached by WCNC Sunday said the pilot is part of TSA’s Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) program, which trains pilots to carry guns on flights. Andrea McCauley said the gun discharged in the cockpit, but she could not release how the gun was being transported at the time. She did not release the pilot’s name, but said he was authorized to carry the weapon and was last requalified in the FFDO program last November.
Modern airliners are fly-by-wire, meaning that the controls activate pumps and motors that do the actual work, so if a bullet hits a cable bundle, the computer, or a lot of other things, you are SOL trying to fly it. If a bullet punctures the skin of the aircraft, or a window, you will have decompression, possibly explosive depending on the altitude. These are among the many reasons I opposed this concept from the start. A good, old fashioned club or baseball bat is a much safer alternative to a gun for controlling things on an aircraft.
7 comments
It seems to me that a firearm is not an appropriate means of self defense in an enclosed and pressurized craft.
How about a tranquilizer dart? I don’t know. Anything that isn’t going to go through the wall of the craft is probably better than anything that could.
If force is necessary, a Louisville slugger is the safest thing to use. Any projectile weapon is too risky on an aircraft, and night stick or baseball bat will trump anything but a gun.
A .40 caliber round is just stupid on an aircraft – too much force, too much penetration. Using an autoloader means a full metal jacket to feed properly. It is way too much gun.
It has a magazine and can be loaded and cocked in a second, there is no reason to have it loaded until it is needed.
This incident reinforces my decision not to fly, absent utter necessity, until the “terr’ist” threat is behind us. A gun in the cockpit does not make the passengers safer. It is a measure of how crazed with fear we have become that anyone ever thought it was a good idea to permit… even encourage… pilots to carry firearms on civilian aircraft.
Will this incident be a wake-up call? I doubt it.
The Air Marshals carry .22 calibers with special bullets to prevent penetrating the skin of the aircraft. This is criminally stupid and won’t stop until there’s a disaster and the law suits start flying faster than the aircraft.
oh lovely. safe to carry, maybe, but not safe to give to overgrown kids apparently.
tangentially, this is one of the few shows that makes me sad i gave away my tv.
I should note that “explosive decompression” doesn’t mean that anything explodes, it means that the pressure drop is nearly immediate, and the reason you wear an oxygen mask on military aircraft on altitudes above 40,000 feet – there isn’t time to react if there’s a pressure loss.
Based on the additional reporting I suspect he was unloading the weapon by pulling back the slide and forgot to remove the clip first, or had his finger on the trigger while attempting to unload the weapon.
The pistol will not fire unless the trigger is pulled back. That’s the reason it is so popular with police departments and the military. You have to be a total idiot to have one discharge “accidentally.
[…] to the reporting of the Charlotte Observer the “accidental” discharge of a firearm on that US Air flight pierced the cockpit wall. They have […]