Katy, bar the door

[John Kelsey]

At 09:32 PM 10/31/02 -0800, Tim May wrote:
...
>If the attackers/hijackers cannot get into the cockpit and gain control 
>of the plane, then the most they can do with disabling/lethal/nerve 
>gases is to cause the plane to essentially crash randomly...which kills 
>a few hundred people, but probably not many more.
>
>Which is yet another reason why securing the cockpit door very, very 
>well is the single most important, and cheapest, solution.

Hmmm.  I agree, but if the attackers chose the right time (while the
plane's on autopilot) to release the gas or whatever, they might have an
hour or two to get through the cockpit door, with no resistance at all from
the now-dead passengers or crew.  Securing a cockpit door in those
circumstances is *much* harder than securing it against someone with a
shorter time to get through, and with the possibility of active resistance
from the other side.  (I seem to recall hearing some pilot comment that he
was very confident of his ability to keep someone from breaking through the
door, just by flying so that it's almost impossible to stay on your feet.
Certainly, trying to use a hacksaw or cutting torch or something wouldn't
be much fun while the pilot did loops or something.)  

On the other hand, the pilot or copilot pretty much just have to figure out
something is wrong and indicate this fact to the people on the ground, and
there will be a plane along shortly to shoot them down if necessary.  And I
don't think this kind of gassing attack would work all that smoothly in
practice--some people would be affected before others, due to nonuniformity
in the way air is distributed in the cabin and different levels of
susceptibility.  

The combination of a hard-to-break-into cockpit and some kind of response
to prevent these planes being used as low-tech cruise missiles seems like a
win.  Maybe it would make sense to add some kind of remote surveilance of
the cockpit, though I imagine this wouldn't be too popular with pilots, and
they'd definitely need to secure the channel properly.  

>--Tim May
 --John Kelsey, kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com // jkelsey at certicom.com