Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

Lets see,

American Airlines 232 attacked everyone, and they could have been evacuated in flight with parachutes.

Alaska Air flight 261 attacked everyone, and they could have save at least some people by jumping out with parachutes.

Bunch of eastern airliners crashing in IMC that could have just had their passengers jump to safety.

UPS Airline Flight 6 attacked all on board, bet they wish they had some parachutes.

Oh, to be sure, I'm not just talking about pilots having parachutes, I'm talking about EVERYONE. Why not? It's their safety right?

The list could go on and on for days really. Is it ridiculous? Absolutely, but it's no more ridiculous than thinking government funding for guns in the cockpit is going to be any more useful. Heck, if you had everyone wearing parachutes you'd probably have more people here today than if everyone had guns on board. But again, it's ridiculous. How many flight crews could we save if we just had ejection seats up front? Why not throw some money there too? There's no reason you shouldn't be there waving the flag and making the case for parachutes. Heck, there's still a good change a "better shot" is going to win. FFDOs are never going to be trained operators, so that kind of throws out "what if it's a trained attacker" argument out of the water. If you're fantasy and imagination are such that you think the attackers are going to be like neo from the matrix, no amount of FFDO training is going to be enough. But hey, at lease with parachutes they could open the doors and jump to safety regardless of what the airplane does, right?

It's not that "it will never happen again", although I'd submit that it's likely to happen again in a way we were unable to foresee, but I digress. The appropriate measures in place are what's needed. Security at the airport. Flight attendant training. The appropriate briefings, etc. I'd rather have 20 people tackle some guy that was trying to detonate a bomb or pull a gun rather than hope a one-on-one showdown with a pilot trying to wrench himself out of a seat and in the opposite direction through a tiny door. Again, if you think that is realistically going to stop anything better, then I've got a load of parachutes to sell you.

I'm not against guns in the cockpit. If you want to bring your gun or parachute, go right ahead. I'm not going to complain, just don't try to make the taxpayers foot the bill for the ridiculousness.