First, I want to thank all of you very sincerely for such an outpouring of literate and intelligent E-mail responses to my reflections on ABC.COM on this attack against the U.S., and the aerospace ramifications and dimensions of the disaster. I will try to personally reply to all of you, but since so many of you questioned why I said what I said regarding the cockpit door's security and the ability to barricade the pilots inside, I want to collectively answer that question.

Second, all of you who have addressed the subject are entirely correct that the cockpit doors of our jetliners can be substantially beefed up in several ways, despite the vital need to maintain "blowout" panels (or an adequate method, in the event of rapid depressurization in the cabin, of instantly relieving pressure within the cockpit without blowing down bulkheads). New blowout panels can be designed on the bulkheads themselves without much expense, and far tougher doors (effectively impregnable) and locks can be incorporated, and even Kevlar coatings can be used to make the door bullet proof. BUT...until the philosophy we have always used as pilots changes affirmatively to the philosophy and the procedure that airline pilots must NEVER leave the cockpit when there is any threat in the back, all the fortress-making changes will be thwarted.

What do I mean by this? Well, without going into too much detail or providing a roadmap for some future terrorist, suffice it to say that airline pilots today do not contemplate reacting to a major threat to our fellow crewmembers in the back (flight attendants) by "hiding" in the cockpit. Even though we have only two pilots in most cockpits now instead of the previous three pilots, one of us would still almost inevitably be ready to come to the aid of our fellow crewmembers and passengers if there was an active threat and a reason to believe we could stop it. Since the cockpit doors are not strong enough to be impregnable, simply keeping the door closed does not guarantee the security of the pilots while in the cockpit, and therefore we have always felt that we might as well meet a threat head on, rather than sit there strapped in, waiting to be attacked by anyone who would burst through the door (which I suspect is what happened in at least one of our compatriots' cockpits on Tuesday). Is it procedure to leave the cockpit and go back to quell any threat or problem? No, but it's human nature, and to change it we need (1) nearly-impregnable doors, AND (2) a standing order that if someone or some group is systematically threatening, hurting, or even killing people in the back, no pilots may leave the flight deck. Instead, we get the aircraft on the ground asap and use whatever maneuvers we can in the meantime to destabilize whatever's happening in the cabin. We CAN be retrained, but it takes a national decision to make that change, plus a massive alteration in the structure of the rules to justify it.

I have also been talking with my airline pilot community and I can tell you that feeling is running extraordinarily high that certain additional steps are vital if we're to adopt "plan B" (in other words, impregnable doors and a stay-in-the-cockpit philosophy): (1) Arm the flight crew after specific firearms training equal to what those of us who are military veterans have received.

The location, type, and chain of possession of whatever firearm is issued is open, but the weapon should permit at least one pilot to be able to instantly kill anyone who enters the cockpit by force, with minimal damage to the surrounding structure. The firearm use would not be for the purpose of going to the back and staging a gunfight, but merely for defending the cockpit, and, thus, the control of the aircraft. Federal law would need to be altered to permanently expunge (with what we call in the law "federal preemption") any potential criminal or civil liability for use of such a firearm at the direction of the captain or the surviving second-in-command; (2) Video cameras in the area aft of the cockpit and in the cabin, permitting the pilots to examine what's happening without having to stand at the cockpit door vulnerable to a bullet or a sudden thrust of a sharp weapon. With a video recorder, such cameras could provide solid evidence for prosecution of any violator or would-be violator attempting to enter the cockpit, but more importantly, such a video system would enable us to positively identify flight attendants who want to come in, and assure us that no one is standing there with a gun or a knife.

The added advantage of these changes would be the utter lack of impact on the ease of usage of the system for passengers, and the absolute assurance that September 11th could never be repeated (IE easy access to pilots and cockpit). By no means is this the only shield in the line of defense to be erected, but these are sound ideas, and they start with a required overhaul of the FAA's historical tendency to distrust the assigned pilots when it comes to possession and use of defensive firearms and/or mace. It is important to remember that whatever we do, we must not destroy the ease of use of our airline system in order to make it 100% safe, for to do so would simply hand our enemies precisely the victory they seek.

And please make no mistake about it: We are in a state of war with this enemy and all who support, house, sympathize, or finance them, wherever in the world such vermin might be.

Now, some specific answers, if you will, regarding other very thoughtful ideas you've sent in:

Why can't the flight deck be completely separate?

Because virtually all commercial aircraft are designed with the cockpit entrance opening into the public area behind, and any move to alter that physical reality would be prohibitively expensive, and essentially impossible. Now, the Boeing 747 has a different physiology, and might be tortuously accessible by pilots through a separate emergency entrance, but this is not a practical solution.

Also, sealing the pilot compartment can also be a potential safety problem if it becomes in any way difficult for the pilots to get out in the event of a crash landing. Worse, we have worked hard in the past 15 years to build bridges of communication and coordination between pilots and flight attendants, and placing an impenetrable barrier (a separate cockpit not accessible from the cabin) between the two groups would destroy most of those efforts.

Should we have armed guards - or skymarshals - on all flights?

Yes and no. Skymarshals on some flights will probably be a useful part of the many elements we will need to establish in a new safety system, but by no means are they a singular answer. In fact, it may be counterproductive to put skymarshals on every flight, versus some flights. Presenting a terrorist organization with random threats instead of certain security procedures throws a monkeywrench into their planning capabilities. In other words, to give a sophisticated and well-financed terrorist organization assurance that any targeted aircraft will have an armed security officer aboard simply invites that organization to find a guaranteed way to identify and neutralize that skymarshal.

How about having a remote control system to take over from the ground if the pilots are neutralized?

Yes, we do have the technology, but it would be ruinously expensive and it would have one other negative feature that makes this idea, while thoughtful and clever, not feasible at this stage in our technological development: Any system which could be used to lock out the manual controls and fly the airplane with signals from the ground could also operate at the wrong time, and perhaps even be operated by terrorists "hacking" into the system, however invulnerable it is designed to be. In addition, a multiple failure mode might allow it to incorrectly "lock out" the aircrew, due to internal fault. Consider the reliability of Microsoft's best operating systems and the number of system crashes we have to tolerate. The specter of an aircrew suddenly losing the ability to control their jetliner because of erroneous signals from the ground or an internal fault is simply unacceptable and essentially inevitable given Murphy's Law: (Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong and at the worst possible moment). Finally, only Airbus aircraft with sidestick controllers are so fully automated that such a system would be possible without major retrofit.

In other words, someday, maybe, but this is not an immediately adoptable method.

By the way, some of you have asked whether or not a person could learn to fly a 757 or 767 well enough to execute such a murderous crime with nothing more than single engine pilot training and a lot of time using a Flight Simulator software program, such as the very sophisticated one Microsoft sells. In a word, no. Certainly you could learn a lot about the instruments and their locations and general response of the systems, but you could never get the "feel" of the control yoke or the aircraft itself, and the "feel" is critical to being able to hit a building such as the World Trade Center at 280 knots. Someone without training and exposure of some sort to a large jetliner might hit the target, but the certainty of success is greatly reduced, and the meticulous planning for this crime against humanity indicates the planners would not have accepted such a gamble.

Finally, it is sadly true that had September 11th been cloudy with a low overcast over New York, the attack would have been postponed, and perhaps the minimal ability of our existing structure to catch them in time might have been enhanced.

I will post more in the next few days, but in the meantime, I wholeheartedly join all Americans in this unique moment of rage and fury, tempered and focused by the firm resolve expressed by President Bush. In this extraordinarily historic moment of mourning equaling or even exceeding the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, we also celebrate our pride in being Americans, and in our unique resiliency in spirit and accomplishment which will guide the intelligent changes we must make to keep our air transportation system accessible and safe from mass murderers and other enemies of mankind.

- John J. Nance

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