Not to mention there is a big axe in the cockpit.

What's more is that for some time they allowed pilots to carry handguns in the cockpit (federal flight deck officers). I always found it amusing when one of the pilots got waved through carrying a firearm while the other had to go through secondary screening.

First, I don't agree with the use of full body scanners.

To be fair, the TSA doesn't know that the guy is a pilot - only that he has the uniform and some sort of identification that says he is - both of which could be faked.

Unfortunately nothing is likely to change until it's not isolated incidents of people refusing to go through the full body scanners but rather 10% or more of the flying public. --I'm estimating, of course, but can you imagine the backlogs if just 10% of passengers refused every day and forced the TSA to spend time frisking them?

Or people will just stop using planes. I started driving when I need to go anywhere now. I really enjoy it. I can make it from my place in Florida to my fathers home in Montreal Canada in less than 2 days. That's no worse than spending an entire day in the airport. At least in the car I get a comfortable seat, radio, and a nice scenery.

> Or people will just stop using planes.

Unfortunate and ironic from a safety POV since driving is much more dangerous than flying on commercial flights.

That's so very true. Maybe someone should explain that to the people in charge of making policies. They are putting people in danger ;p

Then how does he get on the fligth deck? If his ID isn't sufficient to avoid screening - but it is sufficient to allow him to sit in the front seats ?

It's no different than passengers going through screening - the TSA ID checkers aren't likely to catch a high quality fake ID, and we know that boarding passes can be faked. That's one of - if not the best - arguments as to why it's pointless for the TSA to be checking IDs anyway.

The point still stands though. A fake pilot in the cockpit is as dangerous as a passenger with grenades strapped to his chest. More so.

When you're sitting in the driver's seat, who cares if you have any weapon you want? Ergo, anything that can get you in the driver's seat should be good enough to get you past security, faked or not.

Taken to extreme it would be like the Secret Service checking the president for a swiss army knife before letting him into the big red button room.

So who does check the ID?

If it's not the super trained government appointed guardians of our safety - the clerk at the departure gate ?

Surely there should also be a TSA agent standing behind each pilot throughout the flight if they can't be sure of the pilots identity?

I flew yesterday, and arrived early enough to watch the crew get onto the plane. There was a cursory check of their IDs, but very cursory. The main thing seemed to be that everyone knew each other; the crew had worked together before, and the flight agent who checked their IDs knew them. I would not be surprised if the flight agent was given pictures of the pilots as well as their names, though, which would probably provide the greatest security (identity verified by a trusted third party, the airline, without any chance for the pilot to interact with the verifying document, as happens with passports or other ids. If you never get to see it, you can't tamper with it).

Except that in the US (unless you are at the airline's home base) the checkin+gate staff are probably on contract from some staffing agency or rented from the airport.

The 'Delta connection' flight you are on is sub-contracted out to a 2 man outfit with a single regional jet.

Pay and conditions are so poor that staff turnover is huge and the number of staff is reduced so that people barely have time to glance at the person.

It's one of the hidden costs of replacing the company security guard with the cheap outside agency.

Did you notice there are at least two people in the cockpit?

Ergo, the big axe.

You find that funny?

Not at all times and even then lots of disasters happened because the first officer didn't correct (even major) mistakes by the captain (or vice versa) - EgyptAir 990 comes to mind

True. I thought about EgyptAir and Aeroflot cases too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but both planes didn't have FBW flight envelope protection either? That might have prevented pilot/child from upsetting planes attitude irrecoverably.

And EgyptAir co-pilot actually tried to overcome captain and recover till the end.

But I think those cases neither validate nor invalidate the need to screen the pilots?

Certainly they validate the case to have co-pilots.

That's what we need to make airline travel safer. The two pilots both fly with loaded handguns pointed at the head of the other pilot in case they turn out to be a crazy commie/terrorist/(delete as appropriate).