44 Pilots Complete Training Required to Carry Firearms

There is a minuscule chance, beginning today, that a pilot on a commercial flight may be carrying a gun.

Some air travelers say even those odds are cause for worry. Others say they will feel safer if there’s an armed pilot on board.

Saturday was graduation day for the first 44 pilots in a firearms course at a federal law enforcement training center. Additional pilots will complete their training in the weeks to come -- meaning a gradual increase in the number of gun-toting pilots in airline cockpits.

The pilots went through a week of classes, tests, drills and target practice before they could be sworn in as federal flight-deck officers. The designation is required for a pilot to carry a pistol.

Polls last year showed more than 70% of pilots favored permission to be armed. After the terrorist hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, pilots unions lobbied to be able to carry guns in the cockpit. Airlines and the White House opposed the idea.

“I need to defend myself and my aircraft,” a female pilot said Thursday during a break from practicing how to disarm a terrorist in close quarters. Participants in the course were not allowed to give their names or airlines.

Graduates are required to tell their employers that they have been certified to carry a gun 24 hours after they finish training. They do not have to take a weapon with them every time they fly, but they do have to inform their airlines and the flight crews when they do. Passengers are not supposed to know if a pilot is armed.

More pilots are expected to be trained this summer, although how many is uncertain.

Capt. Fred Bates, an American Airlines pilot who helped put the program in place, said as many as 1 in 3 U.S. pilots -- about 30,000 -- could be carrying weapons in five years.

Not all pilots who want to carry guns will be allowed to. They have to volunteer for the program, pass background checks and psychological tests and make it through a week of rigorous drills.

“This is brutal,” a trainee, a male pilot, said after fighting off another pilot pretending to be a terrorist.

Some pilots expressed little interest in the program.

A pilot for Midway Airlines, who had just flown into Washington, said he viewed the training more as a way to make the public feel safer rather than making it tougher for attackers to take over a plane.

Pilots are not pleased about restrictions on carrying their government-issued .40-caliber semiautomatic pistols.

When pilots go through the airport to their planes, the guns must be in a locked case enclosed in a nondescript bag. Pilots can wear the gun in a holster while they are in the cockpit, but if they leave -- to use the bathroom, for example -- they must stow the weapon in a lockbox in the cockpit.

Some pilots say they would like to be able to have the gun in a holster when they walk through the airport.