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American Morning
Airline Pilots Could be Carrying Guns in Cockpit Within Months
Aired February 20, 2003 - 08:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Transportation officials say airline pilots could be carrying guns in the cockpit within months. Late next month, four dozen pilots will begin firearms training next month.
Patty Davis joins us now from Reagan National Airport in Washington with an update on all of this. Good morning, Patty. We finally got you out of the snowbanks.
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
That's right, and they are finally pretty much dug out here at Reagan National Airport. Thanks goodness, traffic moving normally, it looks like. But on the issue of guns for pilots, Congress passed a law last year allowing pilots to carry guns, but that hasn't happened yet. The Transportation Security Administration has been working out all of the details so they can get guns into pilots' hands. Yesterday, a TSA task force recommended five days or 48 hours of training for pilots, including classroom and gun training, psychological testing and background checks for those pilots. Also, pilots will carry federally issued 40 caliber semiautomatic pistols.
Now that's five days of training, very small in comparison to the 12 weeks that federal air marshals get. The pilots we talked to seemed to think that those five days will be enough.
Now, you will not see pilots toting a gun, having any gun battles inside the passenger cabin. What the TSA is recommending that indeed those pilots stay in the cockpit. That's the whole point. They want pilots to be able to repel anybody, as happened in September 11th terrorist attacks, from getting into that cockpit -- Paula.
ZAHN: Is there anything else pilots have admitted to you privately about the implementation of this plan?
DAVIS: Well, there are -- some pilot groups support this, but there are other pilots groups say two issues that they don't like. One, that psychological testing. They're saying that psychological testing is even more stringent than what air marshals get, and they think that the TSA will, in essence, try to block lots of pilots from being able to carry guns. And, number two, these weapons are going to be holstered to the pilot when they're in the cockpit. But when they're done, when they're done with their flight and they come off that airplane, they have to be taken off the pilot and put in a lockbox and carried in a nondescript bag through the airport and taken home with the pilot. Well, some pilots say that is a problem. That just opens up to people ripping them off, to possibly being lost. So they're saying what we really prefer is if we could keep these guns holstered to us, and we know they will be safe and nobody will steal them.
So we have a little bit of going back and forth there between the pilots and the TSA. The head of the TSA still has to make a final decision here, so some of these things could change -- Paula.
ZAHN: There's certainly a lot to consider in this debate. Patty, I don't want to take away from the seriousness about what you're talking about here, but that's rather unusual traveling music that's being piped through the terminal there. The express purpose of it must be to calm frayed nerves. It's very odd.
DAVIS: It could be. We actually compete with that every time we try to do interviews and live shots. So, yes, it's eerie, calming music.
ZAHN: Thanks, Patty.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Months>
Aired February 20, 2003 - 08:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Transportation officials say airline pilots could be carrying guns in the cockpit within months. Late next month, four dozen pilots will begin firearms training next month.
Patty Davis joins us now from Reagan National Airport in Washington with an update on all of this. Good morning, Patty. We finally got you out of the snowbanks.
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
That's right, and they are finally pretty much dug out here at Reagan National Airport. Thanks goodness, traffic moving normally, it looks like. But on the issue of guns for pilots, Congress passed a law last year allowing pilots to carry guns, but that hasn't happened yet. The Transportation Security Administration has been working out all of the details so they can get guns into pilots' hands. Yesterday, a TSA task force recommended five days or 48 hours of training for pilots, including classroom and gun training, psychological testing and background checks for those pilots. Also, pilots will carry federally issued 40 caliber semiautomatic pistols.
Now that's five days of training, very small in comparison to the 12 weeks that federal air marshals get. The pilots we talked to seemed to think that those five days will be enough.
Now, you will not see pilots toting a gun, having any gun battles inside the passenger cabin. What the TSA is recommending that indeed those pilots stay in the cockpit. That's the whole point. They want pilots to be able to repel anybody, as happened in September 11th terrorist attacks, from getting into that cockpit -- Paula.
ZAHN: Is there anything else pilots have admitted to you privately about the implementation of this plan?
DAVIS: Well, there are -- some pilot groups support this, but there are other pilots groups say two issues that they don't like. One, that psychological testing. They're saying that psychological testing is even more stringent than what air marshals get, and they think that the TSA will, in essence, try to block lots of pilots from being able to carry guns. And, number two, these weapons are going to be holstered to the pilot when they're in the cockpit. But when they're done, when they're done with their flight and they come off that airplane, they have to be taken off the pilot and put in a lockbox and carried in a nondescript bag through the airport and taken home with the pilot. Well, some pilots say that is a problem. That just opens up to people ripping them off, to possibly being lost. So they're saying what we really prefer is if we could keep these guns holstered to us, and we know they will be safe and nobody will steal them.
So we have a little bit of going back and forth there between the pilots and the TSA. The head of the TSA still has to make a final decision here, so some of these things could change -- Paula.
ZAHN: There's certainly a lot to consider in this debate. Patty, I don't want to take away from the seriousness about what you're talking about here, but that's rather unusual traveling music that's being piped through the terminal there. The express purpose of it must be to calm frayed nerves. It's very odd.
DAVIS: It could be. We actually compete with that every time we try to do interviews and live shots. So, yes, it's eerie, calming music.
ZAHN: Thanks, Patty.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
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