Minnesota Rep. Chip Cravaack wants to expand a program that allows specially-trained commercial pilots to carry guns in the cockpit.

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Chip Cravaack is taking on an Obama administration plan to downsize a federal program that allows specially trained commercial airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit.

Obama’s proposed 2013 budget would cut funding for the $25 million-a-year Federal Flight Deck Officers program in half. In a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation on Friday, Cravaack said even the current figure isn’t enough to certify all the pilots who want into the program, and he’s introducing a bill doubling it’s funding, offsetting the new spending with cuts elsewhere.

Rep. Chip CravaackRep. Chip Cravaack

“This is a challenge for us: the FFDO program is not expanding,” he said. “We are introducing this bill and we will lobby hard for this program.”

For the back-story, we need to go back to 9/11.

Cravaack, then a pilot with Northwest Airlines, was holding his eight-month-old child when a babysitter told him about a plane hitting the World Trader Center. Cravaack assumed it was a small personal craft, accidentally steering into one of the twin towers on a sightseeing flight. The babysitter told it was a commercial jet.

“I’m racing through all the scenarios in my mind as to how that could occur,” he said in his speech. “Then I turn on the television and saw the second plane hit. … That’s how it started.”

At the time, pilots were barred from bringing firearms onto the flight deck, and had been since 1987. Before then, it was commonplace for pilots to be armed while flying — and when U.S. mail was on board, it was required, said Tracy Price, the director of the Airline Security Consulting Group.

But after 9/11, Congress passed laws establishing the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Along the way, it established the Federal Flight Deck Officer program. Its $25 million funding level has been flat since then, and Cravaack said it generally costs the government only $15 per flight to operate.

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Most pilots have to pay out-of-pocket for their twice-yearly certification and Cravaack said the system is backlogged with new pilots waiting to get licenses. The program didn’t certify a single officer last year, he said.

It’s rare for a pilot to actually need his or her gun when flying — a panel of air safety advocates at the Heritage event was unable to name a single instance in which it’s happened — but FFDO supporters say it’s just another way to keep flyers safe. 

“There are many and varied threats when a passenger gets on that aircraft and the pilot fires up those engines,” Cravaack said.

‘We just think we could do it for less’

The Obama administration is focusing more on a risk-based approach to air travel security in which would-be threats are pre-screened before boarding an aircraft. Under that a system, a program like FFDO isn’t needed.

During testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee in February, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said risk-based programs would take first priority when the Obama administration sets its budgets.

 “The program is not risk-based. You will have a FFDO whether [a threat] is on the flight or not,” Napolitano said. “We have not predicted its demise, we just think we could do it for less.”

At the time, Cravaack asked Napolitano what she considers to be the last line of defense for air travelers. Her response — a reinforced cockpit door — was panned at Friday’s Heritage event.

Cravaack said armed pilots serve as both a deterrent for would-be terrorists and a “safety net” for flyers, a last line of defense in case someone managed to get into the cockpit.

 The panel backed Cravaack, equating the layers of air travel security — from risk-based measures and airport screening to the reinforced cockpit door and the FFDO program — to the redundant mechanical systems built into aircraft as safety measures. The panel said they backed risked-based screening techniques, but said the government shouldn’t move away from programs that work right now.

“When you’re up there in an aircraft,” FFDO Association Vice President Mike Karn said, “you can’t open the window and ask for help.”

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry

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5 Comments

  1. Can passengers choose not to fly

    with an armed crew? Perhaps Rep. Craavack would like to re-consider in light of recent vigilante events in Florida.

  2. If pilots pay for the license, why should there be a governmental cost at all? The license should cover the costs. I don’t see where we need ANY federal money for this. Having been through airport security a handful of times since 9/11, I’d say we’re doing more than enough (read excessively) to make it reasonably safe to be a pilot. Pilots are behind locked doors now, anyway. It seems to me that being certified to carry a gun on a plane as a pilot is a personal choice. In fact, it seems to me that carrying a gun into the cabin of a plane is simply providing a weapon for a potential terrorist to use.

  3. Guns are not necessary

    now that the doors to cockpits are heavily reinforced with steel and are kept locked. The 9/11 perpetrators were able to succeed only because the cockpit doors were open.

  4. An accident waiting to happen

    Carrying a firearm into the cockpit is not necessary, as Bernice suggests. The problem with firearms in general is that they are dangerous (duh) and thus must be handled with care. Sky Marshals whose job it is to provide security and who train regularly with their firearms should be the ones with the guns. Pilots, who would only carry guns incidental to their many other duties, are more likely to become complacent, which could cause an accidental discharge in the pressurized cabin.

  5. Talk about significant or self-indulgent legislation, Cravaak?

    And mine, sidebar issue maybe… but does Cravaack, former pilot, now carry a gun when he flies as a commuting congressman…and does he have a quick temper? Just wondering?

    Be it gun or box-cutter…if in the wrong hands, it’s a dangerous object. Used for protective purposes… or recreation where humans are not an intended object; another issue…but. it all comes down to the mind of the holder.

    Authorize as self defense in the cockpit assumes the same variables? The use and abuse of a gun depends on the ‘holder’ pilot, copilot or even over zealous passenger?

    Regulations, authorizations simply applied to an organization or individuals, also involves objective/subjective perceptions, evaluations by ‘authorities’ …and then too, like a necessary watchdog, come civil liberties abuse?

    Whee, I’m stopping before I rattle too many secondary cages and start to disagree with my original premise; which was what again?…have a nice day.

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