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"Reinforced doesn't mean impregnable, for one thing." The reinforced cockpit doors are meant to be safe from being penetrated by small arms fire and fragmentat

by martey 14y ago

"Reinforced doesn't mean impregnable, for one thing." The reinforced cockpit doors are meant to be safe from being penetrated by small arms fire and fragmentation grenades. [1] I doubt knives of the size that the TSA plans to allow would be more dangerous. "on the ground people can flee. On a plane you could still have a bad hostage situation even if the cockpit is not taken over" You could have a similarly bad hostage situation on a bus, on a train, or in the subway. [1] http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=5470 http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId...

anigbrowl 14y ago
The reinforced cockpit doors are meant to be safe from being penetrated by small arms fire and fragmentation grenades. [1] I doubt knives of the size that the TSA plans to allow would be more dangerous. It's harder to get through a reinforced door in a hurry, but I can think of plenty ways of either getting through it more slowly, or of making the cockpit unpleasant to be in without breaching it - lighting a fire outside it, for example. At the least this would necessitate a dangerous emergency landing. You could have a similarly bad hostage situation on a bus, on a train, or in the subway. No, you couldn't. Those are all bad hostage situations, but the difference is that if you manage to escape the confined space then you'll probably be able to run away, whereas on an airborne plane there's no where you can run away to because you're thousands of feet from the ground. Ignoring this rather obvious difference seems obtuse.
- martey 14y ago
  "It's harder to get through a reinforced door in a hurry, but I can think of plenty ways of either getting through it more slowly, or of making the cockpit unpleasant to be in without breaching it - lighting a fire outside it, for example." I can think of a number of ways as well, but most of them do not involve the type of knives that will be allowed. "the difference is that if you manage to escape the confined space then you'll probably be able to run away" You specifically used the words "hostage situation", which implies an inability to escape. "Ignoring this rather obvious difference seems obtuse." HN guidelines aside (I do not think it is civil to call someone obtuse), the original article you submitted states that the TSA does not think that small knives are sufficient to let people with bad intentions crash airplanes. I do not think that the situations you have mentioned (slowly breaching a cockpit door or a hostage situation in the cabin) call this into question.

by martey 14y ago

anigbrowl 14y ago

The reinforced cockpit doors are meant to be safe from being penetrated by small arms fire and fragmentation grenades. [1] I doubt knives of the size that the TSA plans to allow would be more dangerous. It's harder to get through a reinforced door in a hurry, but I can think of plenty ways of either getting through it more slowly, or of making the cockpit unpleasant to be in without breaching it - lighting a fire outside it, for example. At the least this would necessitate a dangerous emergency landing. You could have a similarly bad hostage situation on a bus, on a train, or in the subway. No, you couldn't. Those are all bad hostage situations, but the difference is that if you manage to escape the confined space then you'll probably be able to run away, whereas on an airborne plane there's no where you can run away to because you're thousands of feet from the ground. Ignoring this rather obvious difference seems obtuse.

martey 14y ago
"It's harder to get through a reinforced door in a hurry, but I can think of plenty ways of either getting through it more slowly, or of making the cockpit unpleasant to be in without breaching it - lighting a fire outside it, for example." I can think of a number of ways as well, but most of them do not involve the type of knives that will be allowed. "the difference is that if you manage to escape the confined space then you'll probably be able to run away" You specifically used the words "hostage situation", which implies an inability to escape. "Ignoring this rather obvious difference seems obtuse." HN guidelines aside (I do not think it is civil to call someone obtuse), the original article you submitted states that the TSA does not think that small knives are sufficient to let people with bad intentions crash airplanes. I do not think that the situations you have mentioned (slowly breaching a cockpit door or a hostage situation in the cabin) call this into question.