"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 unpl

"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.