Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company  
The Boston Globe
September 22, 2001, Saturday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A3

LENGTH: 507 words

HEADLINE: AMERICA PREPARES DOMESTIC IMPACT / PILOTS;
PROPOSALS TO ARM COCKPITS GATHERING SOME SUPPORT

BYLINE: By Ellen Barry, Globe staff

BODY:
The pilots who gathered to bury American Airlines Flight 11 pilot John Ogonowski were no more vulnerable than they had been a week earlier, but they talked that day about defending themselves with whatever makeshift weapon they are allowed: a sharpened belt-buckle, or a sharpened ball-point pen, or a screwdriver.

One of the pilots mourning Ogonowski Monday was Brad Rohdenburg, a captain with American Airlines, and he left the funeral with new resolve that pilots should be allowed to carry firearms in the cockpit, a practice that has been illegal since 1987.

   "I just thought, the absurdity of professional pilots who command $30 million aircraft with hundreds of passengers on board are now carrying screwdrivers so they can stop guys with box-cutters," said Rohdenburg, who flew for the US Marine Corps for 10 years before flying full time for American Airlines.

Rohdenburg's argument is not new - he's been making that case since before the hijackings - but this week he's gotten sympathy from people who have ignored it for years. Three out of four of New Hampshire's congressional delegation gave tentative support for his proposal on the day after his passionate opinion piece was published in the Union Leader of Manchester, N.H. None of the three has proposed legislation backing the plan.

"My personal view is that I would support whatever the pilots feel they need to protect themselves and their passenger and to prevent the aircraft from becoming a weapon," said Republican US Senator Bob Smith, who has co-sponsored legislation to reinstate the practice of stationing air marshals on passenger flights.

Since 1987, when a former ticket agent shot a pilot with a handgun he had apparently carried on board using an employee identification badge, flight crews have had to undergo the same screening procedures as passengers.

But in the wake of the Sept. 11 hijackings, authorities - including the Air Line Pilots Association - are taking another look at the proposal. A recent memo from the association encouraged flight crews to consider aggressive new approaches to defending the cockpit.

"It is something we are seriously looking at," said John Mazor, a spokesman for the 67,000-member association. "We decided early on we're not going to dismiss any proposal, even if we had been against them in the past, or they sounded a little odd."

One veteran pilot said he'd hate to see guns allowed back into the cockpit because of the catastrophic consequences of even an accidental explosion that a weapon might cause. At some altitudes, explosive decompression would leave pilots and passengers with no more than 30 seconds of consciousness, said Nolan Hagey, a Kentucky pilot.

"It's best never to have guns on airplanes at all," he said.

Republican US Representatives John E. Sununu and Charles Bass, and Senator Smith all told the Union-Leader that they were open to the suggestion, and only US Senator Judd Gregg said he would be uncomfortable "trying to train pilots also to be police officers."

LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2001