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An Exclusive
Publication of Human Events | Vol. 4, No. 24
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Today's Sponsor |
Neil W. McCabe, Editor
Dear Guns & Patriots reader,
Four days after the Sept. 11 Attacks, a retired Marine fighter pilot flew one of the first commercial flights allowed out of Washington D.C. to Dallas to advocate for the best protection for airline flights: armed pilots.
Dallas was the site of a meeting of the Allied Pilot Association, the union representing American Airlines pilots, said retired Lt. Col. Al Aiken, who was then the airline's senior Washington-based pilot and a member of the union's board of directors. "Captain Phillip Beall, the senior pilot based in Dallas, made the motion to make it our policy to have the goal of armed pilots, and I seconded that motion."
Two years later, the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, administered by the Transportation Security Administration, was an up and running program, he said.
The program is successful, popular and inexpensive, he said. Each flight protected by an armed pilot costs the federal government $15, compared to the $3,300 price tag of providing air marshal protection.
Volunteer airline pilots are deputized as federal law enforcement officers after a government training program and issued a semi-automatic handgun, said the former F-4 Phantom pilot and test pilot for F-18 Hornet program. Pilots in the FFDO program buy their own ammunition and are not reimbursed for lost wages due to training or other program-related issues, such as participation in background checks.
"We have very skilled, very patriotic pilots who volunteer for this program and then end up spending a great deal of their own money, well over $10,000 on average during the pilot's time with the program," he said.
The actual weapons issued and number of the 100,000 commercial pilots participating are guarded information, Aiken said. The number exceeds five percent of the pilot population.
Given that armed pilots are an effective and cheap deterrent to terrorists, the colonel said he was stunned when the Obama administration proposed cutting the program's annual budget from $25 million to $12.5 million.
There has always been institutional resistance to the FFDO program from the start, the main reason he never became a deputy before he retired from airline work, he said.
It is a grudge, he said. A grudge taken out on pilots and on the program itself.
"I was one of the individuals who forced them to implement the program," he said. "Some of us who were instrumental in pressing for the legislation were blackballed from the program."
The 50 percent cut in funding will cripple the FFDO program because most of the money is spent on background checks for new pilots, he said. If the president's proposal is approved, the number of new pilots will not be enough to the program's natural attrition rate.
"If we did cut the funding in half, it would likely lead to the termination of the program. I think that is what the president's real intention is—anyway," he said.
The Marine who flew in Reagan's 1986 raid on Libya from a Mediterranean-deployed carrier said he is not sure Obama has put enough thought into the FFDO to determine that it is an inefficient deterrent.
"I do believe that he is an anti-gun individual and I think that is where the impetus comes from," he said.
Aiken said the fight is now in the House and Senate committees. There are hopeful signs from members of both parties in both chambers, but until the budget is approved and signed.
Hey, before I forget, June 14 is both Flag Day and the Army's birthday—one of my favorite two-fers!
Check out the roster this week, it is loud and proud like our Army!
Enjoy!
Neil W. McCabe
Editor, Guns & Patriots
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