if all it takes is an "unruly" pax to warrant a phone call for a couple of F's, how much confidence does the industry and gov't put in the secured flight deck? Assuming the worst, that a pax in a lav does have a bomb, is it any better to bring the aircraft down intentionally?

@LostSoul: Points taken, but I was mostly writing to that guy talking about self-destruct mechanisms on commercial airliners and some such nonsense. I disagree with the security theater grandstanding as much as anyone else but sometimes people amaze me when they claim incomprehension as to why fighters might ever be needed for an on-aircraft disturbance.

This is turning into an awful joke...

Read this story Richelieu, http://www.chicagotribune.com/featur...,2534148.story (I also personally heard the same story on CNN and FOX news)
and consider that any nation that actually gave the order and was ready to shoot down it's own civilian airliner full of innocent American citizens with military jets scrambled to do so if the pilot did not obey orders to fly where he was told (and the terrorists aboard the hijacked airliner DID NOT obey those orders) would NOT find it inconceivable to be more in physical control of such a plane should future such incidents arise.

There was no time to scramble military planes to stop the Pentagon and Twin towers attacks before they happened, we were told, but future such "last minute" diversions of an airliner by hijackers near a sensitive potential target HAD TO BE CONTROLLABLE BY "AUTHORITIES." If you believe such leaders would have just thrown up their hands and said "Oh, well if there is no time to scramble military jets to shoot it down we will SIMPLY RELY ON THE PASSENGERS ONLY to stop the terrorists using that airliner as a missile." then you are much more naive, foolish and trusting than you make me out to be when I tell you there is GOOD REASON to believe the authorities ARE, nowadays ultimately in IMMEDIATE final control of any airliner and able to remotely prevent it from successfully being used as a missile, if they are convinced that is is about to be so used.

Personally, I believe such equipment was installed at the same time ALL airliners were, one by one said to be being "retrofitted" with "stronger cockpit doors."

and "god_forbids"-

Call me a nut if you want to but I did not get to my age without sagacity, circumspection and discernment.

And do you have any actual evidence to support this belief?

Oops.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/11/...ger/index.html

From the same article:

"Tahir told the FBI that he felt he was being disrespected when the flight attendants denied his request for food, which was being served in business class, the affidavit said."

Totally off topic but I do get sick and tired of this "you disrespected me" bull these days.

Three months and 14 large...

I don't usually suggest this, but anyone think race had anything to do with scrambling the F16's? Again, I really hate to suggest this, but there have been plenty of cases of white drunk idiots battering flight attendants that didn't result in a fighter escort. I can't help but think it may have played a role.

Sure, there are a few cases of fighter escorts for other situations that are white-passenger-related, but in this case . . .

Question: Are passengers allowed to board drunk? Are there rules that say someone in a tipsy state must be taken off the plane by airport security? If that were true, then whose responsibility is it that a passenger who came on sober (or at least not three sheets) gets drunk while flying. What I'm leading to is a binding limit on alcoholic drinks. Now, I can see airlines squirming at the notion of saying "no more" to a customer, but I'd rather law down that law than be scrambling jets. Of course, they may be stupid to scramble jets for any reason except a report of terrorists in control of the plane. But let's say that landings not on the flight plan also make no sense. The truth is no one who is inebriated should ever board a commercial flight. And once ON the flight, there should be no more than one drink per hour or two hours or whatever it takes for the body to metabolize the booze.

Usually, not.

Tipsy and drunk are different things, but the airline can certainly deny boarding in the case that a person is drunk and likely to cause a disturbance or interfere with a flight crew. There is no rule that says security must remove the passenger from the aircraft, but if the passenger is already on the plane and does not remove himself under his own power, security will be happy to "help" effect his removal.

Well, I'd say it is the passenger's responsibility not to get drunk, but it is the responsibility of the crew not to serve a passenger into that state.

I don't think hard-and-fast limits are the way to go; the professional judgment of flight attendants seems to work most of the time. Compared with the number of passengers served alcohol, these drunken rage incidents are really quite rare. People tend to drink during mealtime, so a person might have 2 or 3 drinks with dinner and then sleep for the next few hours, making the hour-by-hour rule difficult from a customer service standpoint. It is also important to point out that different people metabolize alcohol differently, so a one-size-fits-all model would likely prove unworkable and would just annoy people who are perfectly capable of pacing themselves. Finally, a system like this could lead to more people beinging their own booze onto flights resulting in a greater problem than we have under the current system.

Well, I'm inclined to say that since the flight attendants are frontline in dealing with inebriated behavior, they'd better protect their own behinds and refuse alcohol to those who've demonstrated an inability to handle it peacefully. Airline management can impose rules or guidelines. But if not, the "unruly passenger" comes down to a failure of the professional savvy of the attendants.

Where do you buy your tinfoil hats at?

Well, my thought is that if they don't want planes crashing into buildings, a remotely controlled destruct option would be rational. Not that it is necessary as things now stand. Can terrorists blow open the cockpit door if not allowed to take the necessary explosive on board? And that's the sense of screening at the airport. Ideally there'd be no carryons at all. Actually, I think the government should ban carryons and also ban charges for checked luggage. They can do both, and the two bans make sense together. Let the airlines stop playing shell games and just charge what they want to make on the ticket itself. And then have a LIMIT on checked luggage. Though I guess they could take bags over the limit as a freight business. But making carryons free and putting fees on checked luggage favors the thing security wants least, namely, lots of carryons. Which then insures that security screening has more work to do to prevent terrorist tools from entering the plane.