Hey Mori -

Air Marshalls are a start.

Pilots would need HEAVY DUTY psychological training to be able to keep flying a plane as someone in the "back of the bus" is killing a passenger every 5 minutes until he does as he is told.

Knock out gas? I can carry in my carry-on all I need to feed into the onboard air system, and not worry about gas.

A terrorist who kills a sleeping passenger is still killing a sleeping passenger. In fact, the presence of such a system would reduce the manpower needed to keep control by the hijackers.

Ban knives? Almost worthless. I am sure some of you have seen the training session where they are taught to take control of the plane with NO weapons. The fire extinguisher is a lethal weapon of choice. Then, the fire axe, and finally, oxygen cannisters from the plane make for just a dandy bomb.

As for attacking the hijackers - yes, I would, but be mindful: It is typical that in a situation where maybe three people are carrying out the hijacking, it is likely that at least two others amongst the passengers are "sleeper" partners who can keep an eye on things and help feed the control psychology. Imagine 20 people rushing to the front of the plane, going after 3 men. The first people could be badly hurt or even killed, but the group has good chances of succeeding - as long as there are not two "unknown" hijackers slashing from the back.

Sorry to be so plain spoken, but that is how a successful takeout works.

Any system that you but in place, you must be prepared to have used against you.

Suggestions?

Full satellite tracking - it is useless that the plane must rely on the transponder being activated to advise the ATC's that it should be closely watched.

Move the bathrooms away from the front of the plane so that they are not within an arm's reach of the pilots door. As soon as the seatbelt light goes off, two people in First go to the WC's, open the doors a few minutes later as the attendants are serving the other passengers, and with the passageway partially blocked, rush the front.

Make the door a more difficult thing to get through, but also give it less likelyhood to have passenger traffic near it.

Instead of keying in a four digit code to alert ATC, have the pilot do a "double pull" plug system - you simply pull a pin that is on a cord attached to you, much like on a Jetski- only, the pilot has two, so that there is no "false alert" if he forgets to "log out" of his seat before getting up to eat, got to the WC, etc.

Speaking of logging out - pilots could be required to enter a code every 30 minutes, let's say, to ensure that they are still the ones flying.

Anyway - these and many more things that can be done, and for very little money, which for some reason, appears to be important to those that made things the way they are now.