X-raying airline pilots -- what on Earth is the point of that?

The pilots are not alone. its a safety measure for all concerned.

How about this? police officers are not allowed to enter a Federal Courtroom armed ! thats right. i was a Deputy U.S. Marshal for five years. all local and state officers have to lock their weapons in a safety cabinet, before entering the courtroom.

Sound silly? i agree with you that it does, BUT the Federal Judges rule their own courtrooms and their word is gospel.

@john65pennington I understand scanning passengers and even crew who aren’t actually piloting the plane. But read the question details. How does a full body scan of a pilot prevent him from deliberately crashing the plane? For any pilot willing to die for a cause, scanning pilots does nothing to increase safety. It just pisses the pilot off.

The relevant lyrics occur at 0:50, and again at the end

I would think it would only piss off the unimaginative. They are scanned not only for weapons, but for smuggling. Several pilots over the years have been busted making great money smuggling.

Given the fact that the hijackers who crashed into the WTC took a “For $25,000, you too can learn to fly a 747” course, how do you know who’s really flying the plane, especially with the trend to replace US pilots with foreign pilots who will work for less money?

@CyanoticWasp I’m not in love with their music, but they make the point abundantly well. :-)

@MissPoovey I don’t follow “unimaginative.” The imaginative are more likely to be worried about long-term exposure to low-dose X-rays. They’re also more likely to be drug mules who are pissed off the extra income is in jeopardy.

@BarnacleBill Excellent point.

Actually, that’s a really good point that I’ve never thought about. The pilot can just smack the plane into the ground.

This is just madness on a whole new level. How did they not figure out in 2 seconds like we have on here that the pilot can just crash it. I’m lost for words. Putting people in those things is a bad idea anyway, but pilots? c’mon, you got to be shitting me.

One pilot in Memphis refused; the union is supporting him in the event he is fired.

@Rarebear Exactly. If they want to screen pilots, psychological screening would make some sense. X-ray screening is utterly useless.

Thinking on this some more, i think i smell excuse manufacturing. Why make pilots go through the x-ray machine? so you can tell passangers “its for your own safety, even pilots have to do it” That is what i think this is probably all about. They know their stupid little machines are pointless and hated, but they want to sell more of them.

Personally, i refuse to use such machines. its not the being seen naked or anything like that, its the fact that i refuse to be treated like a prisoner for something i paid for. trains boats and coaches ftw

I had not heard this. I find it outrageous. Pilots already receive significantly more radiation than the average person just from being loser to the sun all of the time. There has to be a better way. As far as smuggling, smuggling what? Have a drug dog at the airport, and a metal detector for weapons. This is ludicrous.

I guess one thing about crashing the plane, is there is a minimum of one other person in the cockpit, if not two, who might be able to prevent a crash landing.

@JLeslie I don’t want to write a how-to manual, but if I were the pilot or copilot, and had the control, I could crash a commercial airliner and kill everyone on board before anyone else in the cockpit could stop me.

You know what, it could happen, a pilot could decide for whatever reason, for personal reasons, for ideological reasons, who knows, to destroy the plane, someway, somehow. Disgruntled employees go into places where they work or used to work and gun down people every day, but I don’t think it’s the biggest risk we face, or even the biggest risk that the flying public faces. Most pilots are good people just doing their jobs. If we want to deal with the risk we are most likely to face from pilots I think we should focus on drug and alcohol screening. I think it is much more likely that a pilot would pose a risk from drug and alcohol use or abuse than the deliberate intent to down a plane, and even that risk is pretty small, I think. If the airlines think they need to do full body scans on their flight personnel every time they board an aircraft the airlines need to do a better job of screening their personnel. The pilots and flight attendants are on the front line of the defense, not the enemy, if you ask me. They lose some of their own on every major crash and I have rarely, if ever read anything that didn’t indicate that any of these people didn’t do their jobs or act with courage in the event of a crash. Maybe that is naive but I think this kind of thing is an insult to the people who work on the aircraft.

@ETpro I believe you if you know. I was just hypothesizing. I know if a plane is high up at cruising altitude there is time to correct, but near to the ground or a downward spiral even from high up, I guess there is no recovery?

You all might be interested in this about the radiation exposure pilots already are exposed to, before adding on this additional screening. I alluded to it above.

90% of what the TSA now does is theatrical anyway. Having M16 toting guards in the airport isn’t helping anything either, but people feel safer so they fly more.

It is ridiculous and it is a pathetic reason to play games with the health of pilots. God knows they are under-compensated enough. I was unaware that there was a trend to replace them with foreign pilots who would work cheaper. I’m not surprised by the outsourcing, but given what pilots make now, I am surprised that there is a “cheaper” than that…

You’re absolutely right about the theatricality of it all, @crazyivan. The whole thing is a gigantic farce.

@crazyivan & @CyanoticWasp That’s the Corporatism at work for you.

@lillycoyote Yes, it would be difficult to do at cruising altitude. Even a full stall is recoverable if a very good pilot is at the stick. But of course, maximum carnage would call for the crash to be over a heavily populated area, as on take off or landing. A stall at low altitude is irreversible.

I can imagine someone under sufficient financial stress or aware they were about to be terminated in favor of a foreign import who will work cheaper deciding this would be a way to provide for his family and end his own suffering in one fell swoop—if you’ll pardon the pun.

Looks like I am not the only one that found X-Raying pilots silly. Christian Science Monitor has a lead story today, Pilots to be exempt from airport scanners, intrusive pat-downs