I still remember the first time I flew to the US as a 7 year old. So long ago that it was on Laker Airways. My two brothers and i where invited up to the cockpit. We got some Laker Airways goodies and a view that we would never forget.

I sometimes wish that flying was that magical for me again

Let's cast aside the horrific events of 9/11 and the aftermath for just a second. After the Aeroflot accident referenced in this thread, how could anyone justify allowing minors in the cockpit? Is the benefit to be gained for allowing minors in the cockpit justify the cost, even when taking into account the remoteness of realizing such cost?

My son was not quite one year old and very, very cute. He flew 17 times his first year and the stewardesses could not resist him. We got spoiled that year while flying. On one flight with my wife, he got "highjacked" and taken to the cockpit. This was 3 years ago on an international flight coming back to Canada. So yes it happens.

That can't be true. I learned on FT that ``odds of a kid falling into a "button" or something to that effect are almost nil.''

I, too, remember my visit to the cockpit as kid flying Toronto to Miami in the four prop Lockheed Constellation Starliner in 1960. Got wings, and other goodies. It was night time and to see the lights of the great cities of the Eastern Seaboard and the glow of the cockpit light was indeed magic.

Pity our fearfulness makes such visits impossible these days.

Right, because as we all know there's no risk when a pilot keeps opening the cockpit door while the plane is flying. Stupid Americans for wasting all that money making the door harder to break open and for banning open cockpits.

Yes. The risks you unthinkingly take every day far outweigh the risk engendered by minors in an aircraft cockpit.

Adult pilot error has caused far more aviation related deaths and that is itself a tiny, tiny, component of the risks you face every day.

I think it is clear that innumeracy is itself the greatest risk faced by Americans today.

You're nothing but a kill joy. What about the children and the lifetime memories they'll have of a cockpit visit.

More stupid Americans for letting some guys in a cave in a tribal region of Pakistan suck the soul from our country.

Contaminated cow dung on our food crops and in our hamburger poses more of a threat, but what causes us to cower? Go figure.

Right because there's absolutely no way terrorists could completely destabilize a society.

Locking a freaking door is stealing the soul from a country? I guess modern cars that automatically lock the doors when put into drive have turned the USA into captives of the devil.

There's risk, and then there's stupidity.

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BTW, cook your burgers before eating them.

Not one that isn't already on the edge. Britain and Israel, to name just two, have been the subject of terror attacks for decades and they don't seem nearly as delicate as you seem to think the wealthiest, most powerful, nation on the planet is.

A prime example of the innumeracy that infects our country.

I could not have put it more succinctly myself. Thank you.

Yeah yeah, crossing the street, driving a car, visiting a hospital, yadda, yadda, yadda, are all riskier than flying in a plane with a cockpit infested with snot nosed kids. Riskier than flying without a seat belt. Riskier than letting pax sit in jump seats. Riskier than letting cripples sit in exit rows. Etc.

In my life I tend to look for the unnecessary risks and avoid them. That legal left turn out of the parking lot into a 6 lane road. Forget that ... I'll turn right and do the U-turn. Or find another exit from the lot that entails a left turn through fewer lanes. I want to live.

I especially try to avoid doing unnecessary things that put others at risk at no benefit to them and only benefit to me. Taking your kid into a commercial aircraft's cockpit is unnecessary, selfish, and puts me at risk. It would be no different than a cripple taking the FAA to court on a ADA lawsuit and winning the right to sit in the exit row. Risky and selfish.

It is not a false dichotomy. It's a sentence containing two factually accurate statements. No causation or association was ascribed.

I'm a libertarian, so I completely agree with the general precept of resisting government expansion, however, I just don't think that a rule restricting access to the flight deck is in any way irrational, expansive, or remotely restrictive of civil liberties. I have spoken with literally several hundred commercial pilots and hundreds of other civil aviation professionals in the past few years and without exception they all agree that a closed and secure cockpit door is the single most important element in securing the flight deck. If you actually think they are all sheeple and that it's more important for little Johnny to get a pin from the pilot while in flight, then your sense of entitlement is really overinflated.

You are comparing Israel to Britain? And you call me stupid?

How about what terrorists have managed to accomplish in Iraq?

You allude to the comparative safety of air travel over automobiles, and dis a measure that will help prevent the door from flying open in a crash?

Crashes aside, I've known people who manually locked the doors in their car before a drive, and had those locks protect them from people who in broad daylight, while stopped in traffic, attempted to enter uninvited.

No, thank you. It is always illuminating to deal with people who insist on sharing their risks with me.

More succinctly, he's selfish.