Uh oh...not this again...

[Tomlin]

Just read that a teenager has been arested in connection with trying to commandeer an airliner, and he had a 'mock cockpit' at home. See here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325426,00.html

[Michael Carter]

Bad news indeed, but at 16 years old, I doubt it was much of a cockpit.

[Jackpilot]

They do not let you in with toothpaste but say nothing to handcuffs and rope....no comment!

[Matt Olieman]

That puts a knot in my stomach :( :( :( Hope the kid never was here!!!!!

[Bob Reed]

Yea... But I can not get a bottle of water on the plane!!!! Hand cuffs for a minor.... And they let him on the plane!! Wow...

[Tomlin]

That puts a knot in my stomach :( :( :( Hope the kid never was here!!!!!

Tell me about it...

[Geremy Britton]

i agree with bob i can't even get a bottle of water onto the plane. so how a teenager managed to get a sizable metal restraining item onboard is beyond me!:o

[Bob Reed]

Just goes to show you that the people who do the scanning is are the week link...

[dodiano]

Dumbass Kid really!

[BlackWidow]

I just read the report. I ham dumbfounded by how some people can think that it is ok to do stuff like this.

[BHawthorne]

Personally, I think they should scare the crap out of him, try him as an adult in federal court and throw him into a cell with Bubba, his new boyfriend. Sure, I'm not being PC here, but people need to be fully accountable for their own actions.

[Kris Stow]

They do not let you in with toothpaste but say nothing to handcuffs and rope....no comment!

hahaah now thats funny, evenually it will come to removing you shoe laces and placing them in a bag to seal for the duration of the flight.. Doesn't Southwest have the best record as far a incidents and accidents?

This is why I always rent the PA28, unless its more than 600 miles. Thats when it gets cheaper to fly the big boys... :D

[magicaldr]

Hand cuffs may not be metal, so would not be traceable. Ultimately the crew would deal with an unarmed person reasonably well. Certainly here they have the 'quick cuffs' that are metal, and very effective as restraining an attacker.

Its just sad to know that this will lead to potential problems for home pilots. Ultimately knowing what switch is where does not really present a security risk. After all, we could add a 'pin' number to the CDU and seriously restrict what you could do in the cockpit without it. Just locking the cockpit door has done a lot for security.

I would also be interested to know what the 'home cockpit' actually was. After all, a joystick, pedals and a book on flying could be called a 'cockpit'.

[Mike.Powell]

I'm in California where this made local news. I was interested to hear just what sort of "home cockpit" this idiot had. When the television news crew got done dropping one-line teasers and finally got around to reading the story, they said he had a cockpit poster.

The only thing I got out of the story was an inclination to drop the credibility of U.S. news one more notch.

[Tomlin]

Mike, thank you so much for posting this interesting tid bit that is very important for us home builders- it's good to know that it was only a poster (hopefully). The media, for the most part, is so full of it. One night a Delta MD11 had to make an emergency landing in Jacksonville, FL (where I used to live) while enroute to South America due to smoke in the cockpit or something. The local news was reporting it as a 747, or as a 'jumbo jet' or something totally wrong. I just winced that time, but a few weeks or months later, a Piper Saratoga or Malibu was trying to land at another airport in the area, couldnt see the runway environment, and headed over to KJAX after a missed approach. Unfortunately, the aircraft crashed short of the runway in the woods and all onboard were killed. The news was calling it a Piper CUB. It made me so mad how bad of a job that the news did with the coverage (3 people in a Cub, yeah-) that I called the station and left a rant about how poor of a job they were doing-espcially considering that aviation is a big business in Jacksonville. What good it did, I dont know- but they live for this sort of stuff.

[Matt Olieman]

Yep Eric, and that's just aviation errors, could you imagine all the other subject types of errors they.... most likely make???? I think there may of been many people stressed and or even lives ruined because of their errors.

It's easy for me to get on my soap box and go and on and on, but I think most of us have seen how the news agencies can royally screw up :(

[Bob Reed]

But as the media in this country always does..... They reported a cockpit but never said, at least around here that it was just a poster..... :mad: What they get away with.....:shock:

[Kris Stow]

Yeah the news is always deceiving. They blow things out of proportion I think. The weather man is good.. but the rest are "Breaking News we have kid trying to steal a plane, how did he learn by his 100 million dollar cockpit". haha and he just had the poster.!!

PS. New Pics added to the site, the Lear made it home and is up and running.:D

[Mike.Powell]

And the problem is I still don't know what he really had. The terms thrown around by the TV people were "home cockpit", "mockup" and "poster". Evolving truth? Emerging news? Showering bullsh**? Take your pick.

[Michael Carter]

The really sad thing is how much influence the news media has on public opinion. "If it was on the news, it must be true" :roll::roll:

Shame they don't treat the news as they would an internet source and do a little thinking or research on their own.

I could go on, but this isn't the place.