SHOUT OUT to my fabulous ad hoc panel of aviation experts, noted pilot and senior Conde Nast Traveler writer, Mr. Wilkinson, and "flyboyron": Gentlemen, where are you? Please check the AP photo of the entry an exit holes and weigh in on where this bullet entered and exited the fuselage. You have the aviation expertise. We need to hear from you.

Best,

Guy Martin

The most current report is that the gun was "out" because it needed to be stowed, meaning that it is required that a holster/trigger lock be manually affixed at the end of each flight (and removed at the beginning of the next one). This is a TSA requirement, not a choice, and it is one that is strongly debated among people involved in this program, since it mandates a whole lot of gun-handling.

So now we can stop at least some of the speculating. Nobody was playing with the gun, nobody was doing a Hopalong Cassidy imitation, nobody was threatening the F/O for schtupping their wife, nobody was showing off to the stew--yeah, I'm old enough to call them that--and apparently what was happening was that the captain (can we stop calling them "pilots" and at least make it plain where they were sitting?) was trying to affix the trigger lock, which is easy to do when you're sitting on a sofa with good light but harder in a cockpit.

Criticize the captain for having a round chambered, I don't care. Criticize him for trying to do something that he should have waited to do after landing and I'll say you've never wanted to clean up a cockpit and get on the crew bus asap. but at least we now know why the situation arose.

Go crazy, people.

Glad to have you back out of Heathrow, sir, where your heavy speculation that BAA would have preferred the T5 disaster -- or any delay -- so that the people would be "forced" to shop had me laughing so hard that I had to go get some water. Did you call the BAA and ask them about that before you printed it? Or was the blind quote just too good to resist?

Seriously, thanks for weighing in. Love the trigger lock detail. It actually demonstrates a COMPLETE failure of training and proper gun handling -- meaning, that he was trying to affix the lock to a fully loaded gun eight minutes before landing a commercial jet. You should care very much that the man had the round chambered -- nobody in their right mind messes with the trigger when the gun is ready to fire. It's just not done. To do that is a gun-waving, negligent, Hopalong Cassidy move in the extreme, in that circumstance and at that moment in time.

As deeply an experienced pilot as you are, it surprises me that you would suggest the excuse for the man that he cut the corners in his gunhandling so that he could 'clean up' the cockpit and get to the crew bus more quickly.

I don't want to speculate on what you meant, so let me ask: Are you actually suggesting that we excuse the man for that dereliction of duty while a gun was in his hand?

Best,

Guy Martin

Mr. Martin,

You state a lot of things in terms of absolutes, "never done this way" etc. Yet you are wrong. Again and Again.

I have flown with numerous FFDOs. Their weapons always have a round in the chamber and the lock is always affixed in this condition. This appears to be the procedure.

Nice to know you and others are always willing to jump to uninformed conclusions and present them as absolute fact.

Journalist my ass.

http://tinyurl.com/yrcssv

Mr. "Seven Three:" Happy to have you aboard, especially with that extra tang of authority of your having flown with the gunbearing flight deck officers.

I think you might have misunderstood my posts. There are three criticisms that I make.

One is: why SHOULD anybody have chambered rounds in the cockpit (if as you say that is the TSA mandate)? The cockpit door is hardened. It takes but a second to put a round in the breech of a modern pistol. Cops, the military, and competitive target shooters do that all the time. That is not a criticism of Captain Langenhahn, by the way, but of the TSA.

Second criticism: assuming Captain Langenhahn had a round chambered (which he must have for the gun to have fired) and assuming he put the trigger lock on the WRONG side of the trigger (eight minutes before landing, a very badly chosen moment by Captain Langenhahn, at the very least), then, why did the gun fire?

What I'm saying is, most modern handguns -- and as far as I know, ALL ten allowed by the TSA -- have a safety that must be toggled on or off. If you were handling a gun and in particular trying to affix a device to the trigger, it belongs to BASIC gun safety rules that you take the round OUT of the chamber and make sure that the safety is ON. Talk to your local precint cops. Period.

Third point: why just the one week of training? There are some 10,000 officers participating in the program. The air marshals train constantly, on mothballed passenger jets, to accustom themselves to this very critical shooting environment. Our SWAT teams and military special operators do similarly rigorous training for months on end. What I'm saying is that we usually train our people who are shooting in critical environments to the point that it becomes instinctive. That takes a lot, lot longer than a week.

Clearly, some of Captain Langenhahn's training abandoned him. Was it because the training period was too short? If so, that removes some modicum of blame from his personal tally here.

Allow me to add one more point, with a question to you about your professional status: as a cockpit occupant, I hope you're saying that you are a pilot or navigator. So, instead of delving into into profanity to impugn my seriousness, why not get serious youself? Use your expertise to talk with us about the cockpit as a shooting (or at least gunhandling) environment and tell us how you feel about the program. We welcome the debate and the (possible) lessons you could bring us. It's a challenge, Mr. 'Seventhree,' that we all do hope you take.

Here's the reason: It's supposed to be a debate about national policy, not a forum for you to talk about your ass.

Best,

Guy Martin

Mr. Martin,

I stand by my post.

Your journalistic standards are low.

With just a bit of research you would discover that the H&K utilized by the TSA has no external safety. Yet you continue to talk about "toggling" this switch off and on. It is not on the weapon, as is common in a law enforcement model.

As to why it is essential that the weapon be kept in a condition where it may be fired, i.e. a round in the chamber, any law enforcement officer keeps his/her weapon charged so that it may be drawn and fired.

Only on television and the movies does an officer draw his weapon and then rack it, for dramatic effect. In the real world this will get you killed.

You presented yourself, to your readers, as an expert in weapons handling. Yet you seem to believe that law enforcement officers do not keep semi-automatic pistols cocked. You made many assumptions, incorrect assumptions, and presented them as "facts" based on your own expert knowledge.

As to the specifics as to why said pilot was stowing his weapon at the time, I can only tell you that there are legitimate reasons why this could have occurred when it did. Discussing operational aspects of the program is against the law.

Jesus, Guy, there haven't been "navigators" since Boeing Clipper days. You really step on your...ah, whatever, when you try to talk to flight crew by using such terms.

Mr. Wilkenson! Glad to have you back. Presume the BAA PR people have contacted you in re your speculation about the shopping habits of their customers when their flights are delayed.

However unseriously you take my questions, could you please post as to the original question to you, namely, what's on that port side of the fuselage and what's it like to burn off a round in that pistol-unfriendly environment?

all best,

Guy Martin

There is nothing there but some plastic and aluminum.

Mr. "Seven Three":

First, thanks for the post, most appreciate the response. We understand from the previous post, and from this one, that you think our journalistic standards are low. Do please keep repeating it as you will -- it undermines you alone -- but we're proceeding from this point now into the debate about the actual subject. That okay with you?

What is at issue is whether anybody in any cockpit should carry a weapons with chambered rounds. Not exclusively, but also including, a weapon with no safety mechanism.

The secondary point was to get you to give us your bona fides. In other words, to figure out whether you had any authority for saying what you say.

So, Mr. "Seventhree" , hiding behind your chosen veil of anonymity, who are you and why are you commenting on this?

all best,

Guy Martin

Mr. "seventhree": Thank you! That's a REAL HELP. Okay! So now we can log the fact that Capt. Langhans had the thing pointed in the right direction when he did this unfortunate bit of TSA-mandated maneuvering.

all best,

Guy Martin

Mr. Martin,

First I only directly attacked your journalistic standards once.

With respect to your two questions on the lack of a safety and chambering a round; I can not directly comment on why this approach was chosen, however, as a self-proclaimed firearms expert you could perhaps deduce the reason the TSA deliberately chose a weapon with no safety and a chambered round. I would only point out that this choice is far from unique. Most police/government/security services make the same choices. Weapons are never to be drawn unless the decision to fire has already been made. Once this Rubicon is crossed anything that slows down or complicates the firing process increases instead of decreases the danger.

Regarding myself, I must remain anonymous for reasons that are not, and will not become obvious.

As to why; Speculation, on the part of the media, regarding incidents that occur in airplanes is rife. Uninformed speculation is, perhaps, worse and the latter masquerading as expert opinion approaches dangerous. Especially when presented under the guise of journalism.

It is this desire, insofar as much as I am allowed, to displace speculation with fact and sensationalism with rational dialogue that brings me here.

Note to Mr. "Seventhree", just to be clear: the thank you in the above post refers to your previous one-line post about what's in that wall of the fuselage. Truly, thanks for that.

But the question remains: could you please further identify yourself and your profession and/or the sources of your knowledge.

Which, of course, we'd like you to do, as practioners of the "low" form of journalism.

All best,

Guy Martin

Mr. Martin,

All of the information I have posted is available in the public domain. Were it not I would not be allowed to provide documentation.

It is therefore unimportant who I am. It is not my personal reputation that should influence my arguments. I do not expect you, or anyone else, to believe me because of who I am but because all the information that I have provided is factual and verifiable by anyone willing to do a google search.

That you did not do this yourself before writing two slanted and misinformed articles I find shocking.

Perhaps I am just a well read layperson, perhaps not.

This is getting out of control.

As you may remember, Guy, all of my original posts were about the dangers of speculation regarding flight ops by people who understand nothing about them. Such speculation can be hugely counterproductive, scary to airline passengers, infuriating to flight crew, and it reinforces the general view among professionals that the media are clueless.

The gun issue is entirely secondary to me--so sue me--since I admit to not knowing much more about pistols than what my numerous cop friends have taught me (I interface with LEOs frequently during the three days a week that I am on EMS duty and indeed do go to the range with them occasionally).

So when you talk about "wheel-bay power packs" and "navigators" in the cockpit, you're simply doing yourself dreadful damage as a commenter. It would be better if you said, "I'm very familiar with with firearms, but I know absolutely nothing about flight ops, so here's my theory..."

But then as I first said, why should we care about your theory when we're only gradually learning the truth?

Mr. Wilkinson, welcome back. I don't think we're out of control. We might be out of 'your' control, but that's okay.

Actually, sir, if we look back, your posts are (somewhat) about flight ops -- for which factual information we're most grateful -- and somewhat about the quality of my reporting (always entertained and most willing to have the corrective, however scattershot). But: also, unfortunately, your posts have a disturbing, muddy quality in that they are also about advancing your nutty old-school theories about "stews" and various old-school saloon theories of shoot-em-up cockpit jealousy. You pass this off as fake -- but 'entertaining' -- journalistic reasons for the pistol shot.

Why that? It's about pistol HANDLING, not imagined cockpit love-triangles.

So, may we first ask you to reduce the bluster and the speculation.

We'd actually like to tap into to what we consider your REAL expertise, namely, aviation. The issue is gun handling in the cockpit and the national policy related to that. In light of this pilot's clear and direct misfiring of his (mandated) piece in a cockpit of a passenger jet.

I understand that you might want to excuse him, but, at the moment, neither Captain Langenhahn nor the TSA is excused.

all best,

Guy Martin

This has finally turned into the silliest excuse for any kind of imagined or assumed expertise I have ever read. Your original post is already making the rounds of flight-crew fora that I frequent, and I'm embarrassed for Traveler. I'm done.

Mr. "Seventhree" : can only assume that you're a pilot, especially with the kinda-military tag, so, again, thanks for writing in. I understand that you stand by your posts, otherwise you wouldn't have made them. Send more.

There's a problem in this TSA program that I think we're all grappling with, namely, the 'requirements' of the program to the officers versus (or compared with) the amount of firearms training the officers are given, which is not much.

That's where the rubber meets the road. Or put another way: it's where the round met the fuselage.

Best,

Guy Martin

Mr. Martin,

Assume away, you have consistently demonstrated that this is your primary research tool.

So far you have not responded to any of the substance of my posts.

Now you are choosing to frame the debate into one about the amount of training that the FFDO receives. I take it that you are alleging that the training is inadequate.

Fist of all I would like to know by what means have you reached this conclusion. Though you claim to be well acquainted with the use of firearms everything you write indicates that you are an amateur, and not a well trained one at that.

As a first step I suggest you look at the statistics for any and all other federal agencies as they pertain to firearms usage. You will find that the FFDO program has a lower incidence of any firearms procedural violations or accidents than any other agency.

Either that or just jump straight to the nearest convenient conclusion.

Last let me quote the previous poster, as he summed my feelings up best:

" As you may remember, Guy, all of my original posts were about the dangers of speculation regarding flight ops by people who understand nothing about them. Such speculation can be hugely counterproductive, scary to airline passengers, infuriating to flight crew, and it reinforces the general view among professionals that the media are clueless."

I advise that you take this gentleman's advice. When you write about aviation you look like a fool.

I'm a little late to this nit-pick fest, but one comment. Firearms do not go off "accidentally." It is either due to human intention (shooting) or human error (poor training, poor judgment, negligence, ignorance). I have been around firearms all my life, with handguns chambered any time they are carried -- how else would they be useful? Any defensive/protective situation requires a weapon to be be ready at all times. Otherwise, keep it unloaded (not just unchambered) and stored safely.