GermanWings a320

[martin]

I wonder what ammunition they use.

From the experts:

.44 Special Glaser Safety Slugs.

Shoot safely!

 

[Will]

Glaser safety slugs are controversial. They are super light (and thus high-speed) frangible rounds, meaning they break apart into little pieces when they his something that gives resistance. They're basically the smallest grade of bird shot, packed into a copper housing.

They are called "safety" because they won't penetrate walls inside a home. Even sheetrock will make the bullet break up into these little pellets, and the sheetrock won't be penetrated. Supposedly, this lets you use them indoors without the risk that the bullets will travel into an adjacent room and hit unintended targets. One can see how this would make sense inside an aircraft.

They are controversial, because they are utterly destructive when they hit living flesh. They hit with the same total kinetic energy of a conventional bullet, and since they penetrate flesh and clothing (but not walls), all of the energy goes into the target. It's not the type of hit that's usually survivable.

[Hardy Heinlin]

When the crew carries guns, wouldn't it be safer if the passengers too carried guns? This way, when one pilot goes nuts, the passengers could defend themselves better?


!-!

[United744]

When the crew carries guns, wouldn't it be safer if the passengers too carried guns? This way, when one pilot goes nuts, the passengers could defend themselves better

Yes... but if you're going to have one gun, I want two, so I can keep one holstered and one in my hand so I can start shooting if I see you reaching for yours, or turbulence causes me to drop my first one on the floor (or ceiling, depending).

In fact, I propose we remove the pilots from the aircraft entirely and fly them remotely. You can also put 8 economy seats where the flight deck would have been.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Let's limit the number of guns to 3 per passenger.

Not because of safety. Because of the gross weight.


!-!

[United744]

Let's limit the number of guns to 3 per passenger.

Not because of safety. Because of the gross weight.

Here's a better idea: ban the carriage of passengers (they're just dangerous cargo at this point), and convert all aircraft to freighters. Then the pilots can have as many guns as they like.

 :mrgreen:

[Will]

Ban pilots and passengers! Let ATC fly empty airplanes around for fun by remote control.

Seriously, the insistence on total safety is absurd. We've reached "peak safety" now, where anything we do to try and make the system as a whole safer, is actually just trading one risk for another.

[Jeroen D]

We are likely to get these sort of announcements from the cockpit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtf4Zma8kMU

[Debowing]

Even though this incident is very sad one must appreciate that given the volume of air traffic, this type of eventuality is possible although very very unlikely.

What the air transport industry has to do now, is to enable a crew member to be able to gain access to the cockpit.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Let's see whether the just found FDR still works and if so, whether it may corroborate the current theories.


Hoppie

[United744]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32173632

I guess that confirms what we already thought.