Originally Posted by
DeadHead
Personally, I think the name of the game is self-defense. If the pilot or F/A decided to use a weapon to inflict injury or harm to the attacker, then the line between defense and offense may become blurred in the eyes of the court. Now as to what constitutes a weapon, that can be defined in many ways, but once either defender or attacker decides to use a weapon during a confrontation the stakes rise as do the consequences.
My question is if the pilot/FA who was attacked in this case decided to punch or kick the assailants in this case would they be within their legal right and protected by both the company and the law?
I would think so, but I defer to anyone with a better understanding of the law in this case.
1. Unless you have an obvious and safe escape path, sustained physical assault is a threat to life and/or limb. You can defend yourself until the threat is clearly resolved, even if that means lethal force by any means available. But if you put the guy down hard and he is clearly incapacitated you can't keep kicking him in the head until he stops breathing. If you want to kill the guy, you need to do it within the "window" where your life or limb is in danger. You have a lot of benefit of the doubt in that window if you are an innocent citizen and the other guys is the instigator. But if it's "mutual combat" whoever get's hurt the worst is the victim...the winner of the fight will probably be the loser in court.
2. A pilot being assaulted within the footprint of an operable airliner probably should assume that this is "game on" with all that entails.