Fri, Apr 18, 2008
FFDOA Plans To Fight Captain's Termination
The US Airways captain who accidentally discharged his gun in
the cockpit of an airliner inflight is being fired by the
airline.
As ANN reported, Capt. James
Langenhahn was suspended from the airline three days after the
March 22 incident, which occurred as the Airbus A319 he was
piloting descended through 8,000 feet to land in Charlotte, NC.
No one in the cockpit was injured, but the bullet did leave a
hole in the inner and outer fuselage skins, the outer hole visible
under the port-side cockpit window.
Langenhahn is a member of the Transportation Security
Administration's Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) program, which
allows pilots to carry loaded firearms onboard commercial aircraft
as a protective measure against terrorism. The pilot told
authorities he was stowing the firearm, a .40 caliber semiautomatic
H&K USP, when it fired.
A spokesman for the Federal Flight Deck Officers Association
told CNN US Airways has begun the process to terminate Langenhahn's
contract with the carrier... which the group plans to fight. "This
was accidental not intentional," said Mike Karn. "This is not the
way to treat a long-term pilot."
A spokesperson for US Airways declined to comment on the matter,
which was the first such public incident of its kind since the FFDO
program was created in 2002. Thousands of commercial pilots have
been trained to carry firearms onboard their planes,
The TSA is now investigating the matter... which will no doubt
include the question of why Langenhahn had the gun out of its
holster in the first place.
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