Hijack

TK211X said:
I guess I am just a little worried. I just figured with the amount of people who have mental problems and the recent Germenwings crash that it could easily happen to you. Being just newly certificated, I just didn't want to be ignorant and end up being a statistic.

By the way how do you screen your passengers? Is there a website in particular? Even then, as I mentioned above seemingly normal people can still have problems. Thats just my concern.
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Who exactly are you offering rides to??? If you don't know who you're taking flying, you probably shouldn't be flying with them.
 
TK211X said:
I guess I am just a little worried. I just figured with the amount of people who have mental problems and the recent Germenwings crash that it could easily happen to you. Being just newly certificated, I just didn't want to be ignorant and end up being a statistic.

By the way how do you screen your passengers? Is there a website in particular? Even then, as I mentioned above seemingly normal people can still have problems. Thats just my concern.
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You worry too much. There's a million things that can go wrong every day in your life, not including flying an plane. You gotta up that filter to focus on what's important.
 
This is third hand, so take it with a grain of salt. The entire thing sounds made up, but I heard it from the school owner herself.

The school I earned my PPL at had a CFI who was also a city cop. A city K9 cop. Spitting image of Mac from Super Troopers.

Two guys wanted to go on a Discovery Flight/Pleasure Flight. They were of middle eastern descent. IDK if this was before or after 9|11, but again sounds awfully Hollywood.

Anyhow, up they go and the school is about 30 miles from the edge of Class B. They wanted him to fly into the B to sight see over the big city. CFI said they couldn't do that.

They verbally persisted. He persisted with no. Finally, I guess the guy in the back seat sort of lunged forward and demanded to go to the city. IDK if he went after the controls or not, but the CFI/cop pulled his concealed side arm, told them both sit the F*** down and he immediately 180'd to land.

I'm not too sure how you can train a gun on someone (or two someones) and land a plane (172 or not). But that's the story. No idea how it ended.

For what it's worth, I knew the cop in question. Not well, but enough. He was 100% someone not to mess with. But the story is almost too good to be true. If you're asking how he was allowed to carry a gun with or against the school's policy or insurance policy, he either did it because he was suspicious to begin with or because he always carried it, polices be damned.
 
EdFred said:
In the air: Crush his larynx. End of threat.

On the ground: Depends, but all choices end up with him on the ground in varying amounts of pain.
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54916543.jpg
 
jimmyjack said:
I'm not too sure how you can train a gun on someone (or two someones) and land a plane (172 or not). But that's the story. No idea how it ended.
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Seagal could do it while simultaneously passing a commercial/multi checkride.
 
Does seem like an awfully remote circumstance...and certainly not something that would keep me awake at night thinking about...but it has happened.

Back in the early 1990's in Boulder, CO, someone pretending to be a photographer chartered a light twin to go up to Granby, CO. On the return he tried to take control of the airplane and in the ensuing struggle the plane crashed into a residential neighborhood on the edge of town. It hit a house right across the street from my buddy's girlfriend, who was at home at the time. It was pretty traumatic for her! Thankfully the house that it hit was empty, but both pilot and passenger were killed.

I was trying to link the NTSB report to this incident, but their website is currently down. Must have been about 1990 or so.

But what do you do to prepare for such a thing? For the GA pilot, I say nothing. If it EVER happens to me, the circumstances will be unique, and there is no point in conjecture.
 
petrolero said:
Has this ever happened in a plane with 6 seats or fewer? Over the course of 100+ years of aviation history it must have, but I've never heard of an instance. :
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Yes, it has happened in Arkansas. Don't remember details but I think it involved a person with a weapon. Our emergency manual includes instructions to airport personnel to be alert for any reference by a pilot to the code such as imbedding it an N number on the radio.

Gooogle turns up quite a few. Here is the one that I was thinking of.


Cessna aircraft hijacking in Arkansas

2
On April 9, 1992, a man fitting defendant's description chartered a flight on a private Cessna aircraft from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to Little Rock, Arkansas, under the name L. King. The chartered plane was a Cessna 172P aircraft, tail number N62112. En route, the man threatened the pilot, Phillip O. Taylor, with a Marksman .177 caliber air gun and took control of the plane. Taylor was the only other person on the plane. The hijacker bound Taylor and covered his head with a bag during part of the flight. He left Taylor in Carlisle, Arkansas, then flew off in the plane. At the time of the hijacking, defendant had been in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on furlough from the Arkansas Department of Corrections. Defendant had previously earned a pilot's license with multi-engine and instrument ratings
 
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Most of the time I go flying I'm carrying anyway. I try to get a good sense of my passengers before the flight - if I don't get a good feeling I make myself unavailable.
 
Turningfinal said:
Most of the time I go flying I'm carrying anyway. I try to get a good sense of my passengers before the flight - if I don't get a good feeling I make myself unavailable.
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If you don't mind me asking, how do you safely carry in the tight confines of a GA cockpit?
 
Yeah but, but, but, if you shoot a hole in the window, aren't afraid everything will get sucked out?
 
EdFred said:
Same way you do in a car.
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I don't drive a Mini Cooper, which I'm guessing approximates a 172 cockpit. Plus, my strong side carry puts it next to the hypothetical hijacker. As for the door side, I don't have enough room for a gun and my elbow when I pull back on the yoke for landing.

No wonder military pilots carry their sidearms on their chest.
 
flytime said:
NTSB site is back up. Here's the accident I was referring to:

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.a...f523-46d2-a99b-6b3ef6b23d14&pgno=2&pgsize=200
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Wow. Pax my have become upset when he realized he couldn't just open the door and hop out (actually I don't know if that is true on a 421C like it is on a 100-series Cessna) so he figured he'd grab the controls and kill everyone. Apparently someone survived that ****. :eek:

Why can't people even commit suicide correctly?

Attention cowardly suicidal maniacs: make it a suicide, mkay? Others may not wish to join you. Thx. :thumbsup:
 
petrolero said:
Wow. Pax my have become upset when he realized he couldn't just open the door and hop out (actually I don't know if that is true on a 421C like it is on a 100-series Cessna)
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People have opened the doors and jumped from 100 series Cessna's - with and without parachutes.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
People have opened the doors and jumped from 100 series Cessna's - with and without parachutes.
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Not easy to do with a front-hinged door but I guess where there's a will there's a way... especially at lower airspeeds.

We took off once with a cord hanging out the door. In cruise we realized the kids had done that so I told my wife to open the door and pull it back in. She looked at me like "are you ****ing kidding me?"

I said we're all belted and the door will be very hard to budge more than an inch or two. She opened it, pulled the cord in, and commented about how hard it was to budge the door.

But... my airplane's cruise is probably 145 KIAS so a bit more than some.
 
nddons said:
I don't drive a Mini Cooper, which I'm guessing approximates a 172 cockpit. Plus, my strong side carry puts it next to the hypothetical hijacker. As for the door side, I don't have enough room for a gun and my elbow when I pull back on the yoke for landing.

No wonder military pilots carry their sidearms on their chest.
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My strong side happens to be on my left side, so it works ok for me, when or if I decide to do such a thing:D
 
Carrying a weapon? I know, I know! Why not carry a taser. It's small, and effective. And no chance of depressurization from bullet holes.
 
nddons said:
If you don't mind me asking, how do you safely carry in the tight confines of a GA cockpit?
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IWB at 3 o'clock. I tend to sit right seat for 95% of my flights (CFI) so that puts it on the door side within easy reach, and I'm not a small guy either.

I've thought about appendix carry but a little too close to the boys for comfort.

Next carry weapon will be a LCR with a pocket holster that will do well in a cargo pocket or hooded sweatshirt 'pouch'.
 
Matthew said:
Almost happened at my airport, the day I soloed. A guy robbed a bank, took hostages, stripped them to their underwear, zip tied them together, walked out to a minivan, and got the whole group inside. Forced a bank employee to drive while he shot at the cops through the car windows. The local TV chopper guy was filming the whole thing, just a couple miles from my house. This started early in the morning after he abandoned his car and walked to the bank - I probably drove by his car on my way to work.

The minivan then drove east, which happened to be where the local airport is, and where I was doing my PP training. Cops in full pursuit, and the van drove onto the airport property, the guy got out, grabbed a hostage, and ran to a 172 doing a runup. Then a lot of things happened all at once - he tried to open the left door, he let go of the hostage and she ran towards the tail, the CFI pulled the mixture and he and the student dove out the right door, and the cops opened fire.

The CFI still teaches (I just saw him last week), the airplane ended up with a lot of holes in it, and the dumbass survived all the holes he ended up with and is in prison.

The airport was closed most of the day, and as soon as it reopened I drove out and met my CFI. The ATIS said something like, "Shots fired in the vicinity." All the local news crews were filming their remotes with the airport in the background. That airplane in the pattern, over the shoulder of the reporter doing his remote? That was me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf4GQwc7f1I
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I remember when that happened. P90's sure do a number to Cessna 172s
 
petrolero said:
Wow. Pax my have become upset when he realized he couldn't just open the door and hop out (actually I don't know if that is true on a 421C like it is on a 100-series Cessna) so he figured he'd grab the controls and kill everyone. Apparently someone survived that ****. :eek:

Why can't people even commit suicide correctly?

Attention cowardly suicidal maniacs: make it a suicide, mkay? Others may not wish to join you. Thx. :thumbsup:
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I'm certain that no one on board the plane survived, but I do see that the accident reports says "2 fatal, 1 serious". The injury must have been someone on the ground, or possibly even a first responder. The full narrative is not available, and my recollection of the events was from local news at the time of the accident. I'm sure the report of probable cause relies on some assumptions of what transpired in the cockpit. The plane hit the ground at a steep angle, as I recall.
 
Depends if I was working or not and if it was my plane or not :D
 
Flaps down no longer indicates hijack. In fact it is the customary way to taxi RV's.

if you're on the ground and you have a window, open the window to "let air in" and then while taxiing remove key and drop it through said window. The engine will stop and you'll coast a bit but you'll not get off the ground any time soon.

in the air.... wait till close enough for a nice engine out and do the same thing. The plane will descend. Your "friend" may interfere with the landing, but he can't do a restart and as previous posters have said, you'll minimize the damage to society.
 
petrolero said:
Wow. Pax my have become upset when he realized he couldn't just open the door and hop out (actually I don't know if that is true on a 421C like it is on a 100-series Cessna) so he figured he'd grab the controls and kill everyone. Apparently someone survived that ****. :eek:

Why can't people even commit suicide correctly?

Attention cowardly suicidal maniacs: make it a suicide, mkay? Others may not wish to join you. Thx. :thumbsup:
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The CORRECT way to commit murder-suicide is to kill yourself first. Then if you still want to, you can kill the other people.
 
I've never flown anyone that sketchy or a complete stranger in my personal plane, nor do I plan to, I guess if this highly unlikely situation did occur I have a survival/rope knife in the side pocket of the plane, probably try to drive that into their face, eye or neck or inner thigh.
 
petrolero said:
Has this ever happened in a plane with 6 seats or fewer? Over the course of 100+ years of aviation history it must have, but I've never heard of an instance....
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you must not have not seen that episode of Sky King when he and Penny were taken hostage on the Songbird. :yes:
 
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