Armed Pilots Prepare for Another Attack
New Secret Training Center Opens in Dallas
Walt MaciborskiThe 33 News
December 15, 2009

DALLAS, TX - In a giant warehouse in Dallas, airline pilots are preparing for another war in the skies. They have come here to train and get re-certified to carry a gun in the cockpit.

"We believe the threat is very much alive," said Richard Burt, special agent in charge of the Transportation Security Administration's flight programs division.

Terrorists targeted U.S. planes once and eight years after 9-11, these pilots are convinced they'll do it again

"Boom!" A cockpit door explodes open and a beautiful woman with long hair starts shooting at the co-pilot; the pilot in training must react in a split second to save the plane.

"Bang, bang, bang," the pilot in training, who can't be identified for security reasons, hit the woman in the leg and then the kill shot hit her under the arm. The instructor then stops the interactive video and critiques the pilot on how he could have reacted faster.

"Do I think the threat is still out there?" asked the pilot. "Absolutely I do. Absolutely!"

These pilots are training at a new secret facility in Dallas as a mandatory part of being a Federal Flight Deck Officer, or FFDO. The Dallas center was opened so pilots would have another option to get re-certified. Before this facility, pilots only had one center in New Jersey to get the training they needed. All of the pilots get their initial training at the Federal Law Enforcement Center in Artesia, New Mexico and must be re-certified every three to five years to bring their guns into the cockpit.

Pilots do this training on a volunteer basis. And, they do the training on their own dime and their own time. The airlines don't want to get involved with the program. Pilots say the airlines are worried about the liability. But, the training is intense and the pilots say they are not just a bunch of cowboys with guns in the cockpit.

"There's defensive measures, there's judgmental shooting and it makes them think, and respond, and develop what we call muscle memory so they'll know what to do," said Burt.

The goal here is to train pilots to basically fight in a closet and make sure their moves are second nature. Pilots learn close hand-to-hand combat and learn how to push a threat out of the cockpit so no one can take over the plane.

"It's real life, real world, very much what happened on that fateful day," said a pilot who lost a co-pilot and a good friend on 9-11. "It gets very personal and I'll never forget what they did. There's no doubt in my mind that they are still training, they are still developing new methods and adapting what they know about us to use that against us again."

And considering the TSA just accidentally leaked one of its own training manuals online with detailed security measures, some security experts say we just gave the terrorists our playbook to help them get a gun or explosives on board.

"Every year, on a quarterly basis, it seems there's another inspector general report or TSA report or media investigation showing just how easy it is to get these weapons past screeners if you're a determined investigator or terrorist," said former Homeland Security Inspector General Clark Ervin.

The Airline Pilots Security Alliance says air marshals only cover about three-percent of the flights, so chances are the only person to handle a threat would be an armed pilot.

"And that's my role -- to be the last line of defense," said one pilot. "I never want them to get onto our aircraft again and do what they did."

The Airline Pilots Security Alliance says air marshals only cover about three-percent of the flights, so chances are the only person to handle a threat would be an armed pilot.